Cross Zone
by RISKEDidentity
Summary: Zack Fair, Jack of All Trades, unfortunately never entered the SOLDIER program because he couldn't pay its entrance fee. Instead, he finds himself under sector seven when the plate falls, and thus, his journey with AVALANCHE begins. ZxA,CxT AU
1. Chapter 1

CROSS ZONE: Zack never made it into SOLDIER; he couldn't pay the entrance fee. Instead, he makes a life for himself as a jack-of-all-trades in the sector seven slums. Then one day the plate falls down on his head…

Part One

Chapter One

* * *

><p>Seeing them interact was just slightly surreal.<p>

_"__Shinra says that AVALANCHE did it. They're terrorists you know…"_

They looked sad, and it made them want to hit them, knock them out, drop a plate on _their _heads. They didn't have any reason to be upset – sure, they lost a few people, but sadly for them he couldn't feel sympathy for those to blame – for those who took absolutely everything from him.

_"__The new president isn't going to rebuild Sector Seven! What? Why not? If they don't then no one can get in there and bury the dead." _

Selfish. They were just selfish, and he felt too worn out to do anything about it. What was there to do, anyway? He could attack them, sure, but he knew from personal experience that they would hand his ass to him in a heartbeat.

And that was if he was lucky.

If he wasn't they would decide it wasn't worth having the pretty martial artist bash his head in with the heel of her boot; they would simply tell the massive man with the gun to fill him full of holes and have that be the end of it.

He clutched the drink in his hand tightly. He couldn't exactly remember what said pretty martial artist had told him it was. He didn't really care. If she poisoned him, then so be it. It felt like he were dead already.

It was certainly less painful than his other options.

_Don't think like that, Zack. You need to stay positive. _

But it was hard. It was hard to think of anything. Brief flashes of the plate falling drowned out everything; it made it hurt to breathe, to think, to remain calm or maybe to react. He wasn't entirely sure.

Strangely enough, though, they had yet to notice. The large, darkly skinned gunman ranted about how horrible Shinra was, how inhumane, how _monstrous_. Zack ground his boot into the floorboards. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that he was somehow supposed to blame this 'tragedy' solely on Shinra when those who caused it were standing right in front of him. When their fight ended hundreds of thousands of lives.

Those in the other sectors called it a tragedy, blamed AVALANCHE and all their blinded hatred. It was ironic, really; AVALANCHE managed to turn the people who hated Shinra and its classist society against AVALANCHE itself. The people were never more in favour for Shinra, but he supposed that wouldn't last. The people would turn their hatred back on Shinra the moment AVALANCHE leaves the scene… he just knew they would. Their hatred was fickle. It changed with the win because at the end of the day Shinra had SOLDIER and the Turks and then the ever-present Peace Keeping Troops.

This time could be different, he supposed.

But Sector Seven's annihilation was not a tragedy. A tragedy was the unexpected loss of something valuable for the sake of something else. A tragedy would be giving your life to save a friend. Shinra dropping Sector Seven on AVALANCHE was annihilation.

Yet the guy still stood there, spewing his hatred about Shinra, and its vile ways even though in reality if his group had not waged war in the first place, none of it would have happened. Hundreds of thousands of lives wouldn't be buried underneath metal, dug so far into the dirt that he doubted there was even bones left saving.

_"__You need to stay positive." _

He gulped his drink, forced the liquid down, and, keeping an open, interested expression on his face, he glanced around the church.

The dark skinned man was ranting, and while he didn't really care as to whom, it turned out to be Tifa, the dark haired martial artist who had kicked him in the head when he first stumbled into their hideout by accident. He still had a bright purple bruise from it, and it stung smartly.

"Barrett," she interjected, the hand at her side clenched painfully into a fist. He wondered briefly if she was going to punch the man. "I don't… I can't hear it right now." His interest was lost, and his eyes drifted over to where the more interesting member of the group existed.

The last was the blonde haired SOLDIER that had briefly – apparently – replaced Sephiroth during the great general's MIA. Apparently the rest of the group didn't know a thing about him, other than that fact, although Tifa kept glancing at him with an expression that seemed more familiar than the previous statement would have let on.

"We need to decide on how we're going to meet up with Aerith." Tifa was talking again. Well, not again like it was irritating, but again as in she was addressing everyone. He wondered if that everyone included him.

"Am I apart of that 'we'?" He asked, gaining attention from everyone in the room. The SOLDIER shrugged, and looked off to the side – what a cold guy.

Too bad his own thoughts carried the lacklustre he feared.

"Of course." Tifa interjected. It seemed to be the only thing she could say, considering the moment of uneasy silence that followed his question. "If you want to, of course you could come!" She was trying to hold the group together, trying to fight through her own remorse.

He wondered how great would her guilt be if she learned he had lost everything when the plate crashed down? That the girl he liked had died, that his boss, friends, rival, drinking buddies, co-workers, lovers, and whatever else affiliation he had with them had died? That he was the only one left.

Talk about survivor's guilt.

Was it true? He nodded to Tifa's question, while simultaneously nodding to his own. It would be pretty inhuman if he couldn't feel guilt for it. However the amount felt sickening.

Silence. Again with the silence. As if they had something to really grieve. Well, all right. Perhaps they did have a reason; perhaps it was only in his perspective that they seemed like the lucky ones. Most of them would have the burden that the plate falling was their own fault, except maybe the SOLDIER, but he seemed messed up in general.

"Aerith should be back by now."

"Aerith?" He asked. Another buddy? Great. Lucky him. Next he's going to find out that they have an entire platoon of members that live in Sector Three or something.

"She's a friend of ours," Tifa explained. They use that term too lightly. Strangers that you fight beside are not automatically your friends. "This is her church," she said, gesturing around. "We asked her to take Marlene to a safe place."

"This… Marlene… was in Sector Seven, wasn't she?"

Tifa looked off to the side, and nodded. Barrett just looked mean. Or like he was going to shoot him for asking. Or like he was going to step on all the flowers.

Strangely enough, he felt himself getting to his feet. Well, it was true that they were pretty, but he didn't really need to go to their defence, did he? Oh, right. They were flowers in the _slums. _It was impressive anything grew here.

"Don't you think that!" Barrett yelled. "Marlene is jus' fine!"

"Hey, hey," he tried, he really did, he made his face as open as possible, as honest as he could, even used his hands to gesture calmness. "I didn't mean it like that! Of course she's fine!" It wasn't in his course to lie to others. He usually believed that they could handle the truth, but Barrett was different.

Barrett had a gun arm. Not a gun in hand, but a _gun arm_. You don't mess with people who could just lift their arm and shoot many, many bullets at once.

"Can you fight?" The soft voice surprised him slightly, and he looked over. Oh, SOLDIER.

"A bit," he replied. A bit more than a bit, a bit enough to take down a SOLDIER 3rd (with lots and lots of luck) that had started to attack him back in Junon for some reason or other. Apparently he looked like someone they were after. Angeal – or Angel, or something.

The SOLDIER hadn't died. That had probably been the only thing that guy had over him; SOLDIER were _really_ hard to take down. At least they were with mako enhancements and formal training.

_Come now, Zack, you weren't able to pay for the entrance fee before, what makes you think you could now, when all your wealth is under a trash pile of metal and wires. Not to mention bodies, blood, lives, homes_…

"I'll teach you some, then." And then the SOLDIER looked off. "We can't have you being defenceless if you're coming with us."

"Gee, thanks." SOLDIER 1st…. ha, the man was going to whoop his ass. He may be good, but that was pure instinct and learned talent. Even he knew he used too much energy in his movements, but he didn't exactly have the time or the space to practice real stances.

"It's true… um, what was your name again?" Tifa butted in. He felt bad for thinking that was what she was doing, but he honestly did not like the feeling of being coddled. Not by her, whose motherly tendencies seemed to arise out of her guilt rather than a desire to do good.

"Zack Fair."

She paused a moment, like she had heard his name before, before shaking it off and nodding. "Zack, Cloud can teach you a lot."

Cloud. That was the SOLDIER's name. Better remember that. He nodded. "Gotcha."

He didn't like the way she was smiling at him; its dishonesty was so thick it looked like she was choking on it. Really, if you wanted to grieve, then _grieve_. She was around others that would understand. He was around others he quite honestly wanted to kill.

Then… why didn't he?

Oh… right. Gun arm and SOLDIER. Those two were quite the impressive body-guards. He sighed, before he looked over to the flowers, bright yellow and white. They amazed him a little, and brought along a sense of nostalgia. He _swore_ he had seen them before, and sickeningly enough, that little girl's voice popped into his head unbidden, _"Zaacckkk! Get me some flowers!"_

He hadn't.

He shifted on his feet, trying to remember where exactly he had seen them. Yes, An- that girl wanted them, but it wasn't as if they were on sale or anything, they had been-

"You don't think Aerith got caught, do you?" Tifa worried. She needed to stop doing that. It was putting the other two on edge. "Not under the plate; I mean by Shinra."

"We should go and look for her," he suggested lazily, "ask if anyone has seen her around?" Like the smart thing to do; but then again, what would they know about that? Of course, if he were any less pissed off, he might have had it suggested to him as well. A sardonic attitude didn't fit him at all.

They all stared at him, as if his idea was ludicrous, before the SOLDIER shrugged, Tifa nodded, and Barrett spit. Well… it looked like that was what he was doing.

"We should. It's better than hanging around here, at least." Tifa, Tifa, Tifa… Zack wondered if it was an act or if she always was so… nurturing.

The SOLDIER stood up, and Zack had to take a moment to register it, because the guy was _small_. Well, not midget small, but he was _short_. Zack tilted his head, looking down at the blonde. Well, what did you know?

"So, you're getting all packed up to gear, eh, Spiky?" He teased, even though he hardly felt like it.

The blonde paused for a moment, before looking over at Zack, a worried expression befalling his countenance. He nodded mutely, and then, just like that, the timid behaviour was gone – vanished, vamoose! It was almost laughable at how quickly he went from being an insecure person to a confident man. Real funny.

He kept the seething comment to himself.

"Let's go," Cloud nodded to the door and proceeded. The action allowed Zack a look at the odd looking blade on his shoulder. It was too thin for Zack's taste, though he couldn't afford his taste, and had springs inside of it, almost as if the blade had room to give before it would stab. Seemed useless, but hey, if it worked, then it worked.

* * *

><p>To say meeting that woman again was awkward would be an understatement. A <em>huge<em> understatement, and to say that being chased out with a broom was an everyday occurrence would be… well… correct in relation to _her_. Elmyra. The crazy lady who tried to have him weed the flowers near her house as a help to her daughter or something. He wasn't made for delicate stuff; he didn't know why it was such a surprise when he ended up breaking their stems.

It was a complete accident, honest!

He rubbed his shoulder as he sighed. Of course the crazy old bat would invite the _others _in for tea and story time about that damn daughter of hers. After all, he was just the bulldozer, wasn't he? He sighed, and looked up, to where the rare crack in the plate above gave into sunlight.

He didn't want the others too see. It felt too… personal. Like his grief. Then again, he also did not feel like showing them the hole he had patched up in his side. Crappy second hand materia that never evolved had done the trick to stop the bleeding, and he was used to it.

Though, to be honest, it was probably because he was turning into a masochist. After all, why did _he_ come out of it with a mere impalement wound, when everyone else got smashed under metal? He deserved the scar, he deserved the pain, but he did not want to die. He wouldn't let himself die.

Then again, AVALANCHE didn't either.

He rubbed his eyes. He had already come to the decision, so there was no point in thinking on it. Shinra was the one who dropped the plate, so he would go and get revenge for it. AVALANCHE was only slightly more the victim than the instigator, so he would give them a chance to redeem themselves.

That was his decision.

He was going to stick with it.

He chuckled slightly. It would probably help his case if he could feel anything other than extreme fatigue. Like lethargy had taken hold and made living as hard as swimming through molasses just to find some semblance of anger.

The door opened. "Zack?" Tifa inquired, and he felt even wearier because of it. He looked over, a little disgruntled at having been kicked out, and raised a brow.

"Yeah?"

"Marlene's here," she told him, and it took him a moment to remember who Marlene was, before he nodded. "And I was right," she said as she stepped outside and closed the door. "So, I have a question?"

"What is it?"

"Are you willing to break into Shinra and get Aerith back with us?"

He was all for breaking into Shinra, he was all for getting some girl back, the real question was if he willing to go with them? He thought for a moment, before deciding grudges weren't really his style. He shrugged.

"Guess I don't have a choice; can't let a pretty girl go around without a body guard."

He wasn't sure if he was talking about Tifa or this Aerith.

* * *

><p><em>AN: This is a complete rewrite of the first chapter. Yes, I know it's been a freakishly long time since I've done anything with this fic, but I hope to change that. So, to mostly hopefully new readers, enjoy! To my possibly not old readers, I'm sincerely sorry that you have more than likely forgotten what happens. I hope my rewrite will give you a good enough incentive to reread. Thank you!_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

He felt slightly better, maybe, following the group of lunatics around. He felt like some lost puppy, but it was true that he had nowhere else to go.

"Are we really going to climb that?" He asked, eyeing the _vertical_ pipe. "Why is it _there_ to start with?" Both very good questions, and both made the large man… um… Barrett look queasy. He couldn't blame him. It was a stick that travelled up and up and up.

"It leads up to the upper world."

Right. Like that made it _so_ much better. "Uh huh." He sounded. Cause honestly, he didn't have that much else to say. He glanced over at Barrett, whose queasy expression slowly grew into determination. Woot. Hero time.

Way to mock his own dream.

"We don't know how far up it's supposed to go." Cloud, voice of reason. Tifa eyed the pipe warily.

"This girl we're looking for is up there, isn't she?" Barrett asked, and if Zack didn't already know the man was a blatant hypocrite, he would have been surprised.

"You looked like you were going to throw up a second ago." He pointed out, feeling vindictive, but really, Barrett deserved nothing from him. Barrett jerked over. "What? Do you really trust that," he gestured over, "_that_ to… uh…" Carry their weight? Because kids were one thing and unless some fat kid came strolling by, then, well, he was _not_ going after Barrett. "I'm going before you."

Cloud laughed. The short guy _laughed_. Huh. Didn't think that was possible. Zack felt his own grin fall onto his lips, before he remembered something. Hole in his side, and sword under sector seven. Oh… _right_.

"I'm, um, going to have to borrow something." He asked, or stated. He meant for it to come out as a question, but… well… it just didn't. Cloud and Tifa turned around, Barret looked torn between rebutting his previous statement of answering him.

"What for?" He settled for answering him.

"I'm not that much of a hand-to-hand fighter." Well, not true. "Well," he sputtered, "I guess I've done a little, but against Shinra?" His sighed, his teeth setting on edge before he looked away disdainfully. "My hands are too delicate."

"That's a load of bullshit!" Barrett called out, "You've got more calluses than Tifa does!"

"What an odd fetish," he said dryly, "Guess its good to know you eye-stalk my hand. I suppose it makes sense though." He lifted his hands tilting them just so, admiring them. "They are quite nice, aren't they?"

Tifa laughed. Good. It was meant to be funny. Cloud chuckled. YES! Woo. The guy had feelings. Barrett glared and started to stomp around slightly. Mental note: don't _really_ piss off someone with a gun arm.

"Have a sword I could borrow?" He switched topics. Fast too, before Barrett decided to talk with his fists…fist and metal… gun… and have a personal conversation with his face. Cloud nodded, before reaching up on his back and grabbing the strange, spring sword. He held it out to Zack.

"Don't you need one?" He asked as he accepted. Cloud wordlessly reached up once again and pulled another sword off; this one wrapped in a colour very close to the purple that he wore.

"I have one." He unravelled it, and the blade gleamed in the dirty lights of the slums. Long and curved, its blade darker than the one he had just handed over to Zack. "I got it from…I got it as a gift in Wutai from an old weapon maker that used to work in Junon."

"Nice." That blade would have worked _so_ much better, it was thicker, heavier, sturdier. Its blade was sharper and far more simple. The handle was black, simple, but wide and long enough for two hands and thick enough to not snap at a moment's notice. "I think I might be jealous."

Cloud smiled softly. "If we for some reason end up in Wutai, we'll see if he'll make you one."

"Awesome." There was nothing else to be said. Except for the fact that, while he may want Cloud's sword, he had barely the fundamentals of swordsmanship down, so it probably wouldn't be in good use.

"So we're climbing this thing." Might as well not ignore the elephant in the room. He had a sword. He had no reason to go back or stall, and he was the type to just grin and bear it… or was that not the right saying? He was tempted to ask, but it seemed just slightly uncalled for.

"So it seems." Cloud nodded, but even his face was distrustful. Zack grinned and slammed a arm around the blonde's shoulders and neck, pulling him down slightly so that when Zack pointed at him, he wasn't poking out an eye.

"See? Spike thinks it's a bad idea too."

"All you!" Barrett yelled out, shoving Zack off of Cloud lightly before pointing proudly at that wire. "What is it that you see there?"

"A creepy looking wire." Zack.

"A wire." Cloud.

"A… um… wire." Tifa.

"Well, _I_ see something different!" Barrett yelled out. He was actually quite enthusiastic; even Zack was getting in the groove, and he had discovered he had a fear of the plate just recently. "I see a shiny golden wire of hope!"

He lost him. Possibly Cloud too. Definitely Tifa, because she placed a default smile on and tried to look understanding.

"Uh huh." Zack muttered. "'Shiny golden wire of hope.'" He looked off, thinking. "Nope, that doesn't convince me it won't snap."

"It _is_ the only way to save Aerith, though." Tifa interjected. Zack felt like flicking her or something for saying something unnecessary.

"It's the fastest, not the 'only way,'" he couldn't help but point that out, because hey, she might have forgotten that fact.

"She's right." Cloud said. Before nodding himself. He looked slightly queasy, and then he walked up to it. He shook it slightly. It wiggled. Thank god it didn't shake. That was probably the only time that that would be a good thing. "Alright then. I'll go first, then Tifa, then Zack, then Barrett, you're last."

"Who made you the leader!" Barrett stepped forward.

"Isn't it a good idea?" Tifa asked kindly, though Zack _knew_ she simply did not want to be behind Barrett in the case he fell on top of her or something. No, that was mean. Oh, right. He was allowed to be bitter for just a little while longer.

Barrett was silent for a moment, before nodding. "Alwight," he huffed. "We'll do it that way."

Cloud started to climb. Honestly. They were supposed to save someone right? That entire conversation took _way_ too long when time was of the essence.

* * *

><p>"This would be a terrible time to discover you had a fear of heights." He muttered to himself as he heaved his body upwards along the long wire…pipe…thing. It looked like a combination of both. However, once he passed the wall of angry graffiti and paint, he had to stop… much to Barrett's annoyance.<p>

It was sector seven.

"Oh…fuck." He barely whispered it, and his hands unconsciously tightened.

"It's horrible isn't it?" Tifa called from above. She was more ahead of him now.

"It's all Shinra's fault!" Barrett tried to move forward, but Zack wouldn't give. Seeing all the…_wreckage_. Knowing the amount of blood that filled the streets, knowing the body count and then seeing only _wreckage_. It was as if nothing happened at all. Or rather, it looked like some sad construction zone. No one could really comprehend how everyone hushed for that one agonising moment before the screeching metal awoke him or her, before the buildings started to be flattened, before people started to get struck from flying debris.

"You can't place all the blame on them." It slipped. It really did. And when he noticed it did, he forced himself to continue to move. Up, just go up; to the top that he had only seen once. Barrett had not heard him, he had been cursing.

Tifa did.

"I know." She said, her voice barely loud enough for him to hear. Cloud had probably heard both comments, but thankfully he said nothing. "We need to make it right, but I don't even know where we can start."

There was no place to start.

That was the real problem she faced. She could do _nothing_ to fix what had happened. Everyone in sector seven… they were all gone because they had decided to go off and save the planet. Barrett might not realise the implications, but at least Tifa did.

"There's no one left that can give us forgiveness."

Except him, but he couldn't give forgiveness for thousands of people. He didn't have the right. He made it out. He had lost everything, but he had made it out.

They continued to move. He felt sick. He wanted the carnage to be out of his sight. He didn't want to see what was left, didn't want to even comprehend it. Had the people above lived? Their plate had flattened those below, and surely they had casualties as well… but how many?

There were a lot of people to blame.

Except for those who were dead. He was to blame, in a sense, though he really couldn't see anything that he could have done differently. He hadn't known AVALANCHE before, didn't know anyone they knew. He was just a casualty.

Which was why he was with them now, to give Shinra a list of its own casualties. Liars, they were all liars, and regardless of the necessity of them, he hated lies. Hated lying himself, yet he found himself doing that so often now.

"Why a wire?" He asked, and he climbed the last stretch before the sector disappeared from view. "There are ways for people in the slums to buy a home on the plate. It's not like they're caged."

"It's the fastest!" Barrett. He sounded like he was struggling to climb up with only one hand and two feet. Huh. Actually, he was being very impressive right now.

"And what if we fall?"

"Don't be negative! If you're thinking of fallin' jus' jump! I don't want yer scrawny ass falling on me."

Zack laughed, forcing his body upwards. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Shut up!" He huffed, and Zack laughed again. He heard Tifa giggle slightly, but Cloud was far too up for him to hear if he reacted at all. Damn. How fast did Spike _climb_? Did he not feel the burn in his arms? Really? That was damn impressive. Which meant that if they really were to ever fight, Cloud really _would_ wipe the floor with him.

Because he would be sweating so damn much and Cloud's breathing would have not even started to get erratic. Yup. That would be what would happen. Yes. Definitely.

* * *

><p>"Are we close to the damn plate yet?" Zack heaved. Okay. So pure strength training via climbing a wire, then jumping and finding a few shitty batteries, and plugging them and in blah, blah god, he couldn't even remember what he had just done. Whatever it all was, it was <em>way<em> too much effort for what it was worth. Well, okay, so if this Aerith was a beauty, then it _might_ be worth it. Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully.

Otherwise he was going to _make_ the others… bake him a cake or something. With a thank you card. Because he was doing this for some person he did not know. Okay, Barrett and him, because Barrett was even more enthusiastic about saving this girl than he was, and he apparently had never met this Aerith either. Fun times.

"The Shinra building is just over there," Cloud nodded behind him, from where all four of them hid behind the support.

"We can't just storm though the front door," Tifa muttered, probably to herself as she peaked around the corner. "Shinra would have doubled its security if they knew we were still alive."

"I thought the whole point of dropping a plate on you was to kill you," Zack said dryly. "Shouldn't their security be lax because they think that you are dead?"

Cloud shook his head. "They wouldn't take chances. I think." He glanced over to where Barrett tried to catch his breath. "And regardless of whether or not they spread through the media that AVALANCHE dropped the plate, Shinra is still not paying for its reconstruction. There will probably be mobs if they keep their security level low."

"Spoken like a true military man," Zack sighed before glancing over to where Tifa was crouched down. "Do you see anybody?"

She shook her head, before standing and facing the group. "It looks deserted." She ran a hand through her dark hair, being careful to not pull the hair tie out that held it all back. "And Cloud's right. It's been a week or so, Shinra's doors should be crowded with a mob that demands Sector Seven to be rebuilt."

"Unless they already had a demonstration," Barrett heaved. "Be jus' like Shinra, to make an example of the first group of protestors by silencin' them."

"They wouldn't really expect that large of a mob though," Tifa reasoned, "if they cut all ties from the plate to the slums."

Zack didn't know what else to say. A deserted building that had just taken a huge political standpoint against a 'terrorist' faction seemed sketchy at the very least. Barrett shifted, crossing (or as close as he could) his arms. "Well, there's no point in jus' standing here. How are we goin' to get in?"

"We could do a diversion!" Zack suggested, slamming a fist into his open palm.

"The upper levels of the Shinra building are only accessible by key card," Cloud informed them, before he paused slightly. "A high profile criminal would probably be placed in one of those high level cells. They're in Hojo's lab."

"So what?" Barrett shifted uncomfortably. "One of us needs to get captured?"

Tifa nervously looked to Cloud, who merely nodded. Stoically.

"They'd probably put her on the same floor as Hojo's lab, so it's the fastest way to get to her before Hojo starts his experimentation. Much faster than trying to figure out where Shinra might have ended up putting new security measures."

"If you worked for Shinra, shouldn't you know of some sort of back entrance?" Zack asked, rocking on his heels slightly.

Cloud shook his head. "There was no point. When I still worked for them, I may have been watched the entire time, but that didn't mean I couldn't go wherever I wanted."

Oh. Well. That one was shot down.

"So," he started, glancing up at Cloud, "who exactly is going to get caught?"

"I don't understand why one of us needs teh get caught at all." Barrett grumbled. Tifa placed a hand on his shoulder.

"If we want to get to Aerith quickly, we need to have someone who can make sure she's safe." She explained, and Zack had a feeling that she was making up a plan as well, since 'getting caught' sure didn't sound like all that great of an idea. Ha. Ha-ha. He will laugh. "If one of us were to storm the building, and gather their attention, the rest of us can go and slip through so that we can come to the rescue."

"Exactly," Cloud approved, and Zack had to wonder if Tifa was able to read minds, because Cloud looked very satisfied, as if that were his plan all along. "However, we need to choose the decoy carefully."

"Why?" Barrett deadpanned. Granted, he didn't seem thrilled at the idea of sending one of them as a decoy.

"You would be executed, same with Tifa. Probably as a demonstration to the people that they exterminated the terrorists." Cloud glanced at Zack, and Zack couldn't help but feel _very_ nervous. "They know who I am, and if Hojo were to get his hands on me then I would most likely be heavily sedated and then completely useless later on."

Great. He left it unsaid.

"So… Zack," Tifa worded, and suddenly all three of them were staring at him. He unconsciously took a step backward. No. Nuh uh. He waved his hands in front of him.

"And who exactly would I pretend to be that I'd be considered a high-profile criminal?" His voice was slightly high, but he had no intention of getting caught by Shinra. Okay. So he might still harbour a small dream of joining SOLDIER still, but that didn't have all that much to do with it.

Cloud glanced at him, before turning his head, his gaze turning scrutinizing. "You look like… Angeal… slightly."

Zack paused. _Wait_.

"Angeal?" That name… oh! So it was _Angeal_ that those SOLDIERs were after when he fought that 3rd Class… "You know, someone else told me that too…"

"We'll pretend you're a copy, then," Cloud nodded definitely. "I haven't seen one personally, but I doubt that many of the Shinra foot soldiers have either."

Tifa looked almost pained. Barrett just stared in blank, sarcastic shock.

Cool. He was going to be some copy! What the _hell_ was a copy anyway?

"Uh," he scratched the back of his head. "Okay?"

"Just go in and start hacking people up." Cloud suggested. "Don't say anything, and move fast. Someone might come up with that opinion on their own, and send you to Hojo's lab. Oh," Cloud started to slide the sword off his back. "Don't let Hojo anywhere near you. Don't give him any openings, because if you do, he might shove a needle into you that will never allow you to be the same again."

Um. Okay. He wanted to resign. Like right now. "Uh huh," was the only thing he could manage.

"We'll be there to rescue you shortly after!" Tifa tried. She really did. It didn't work.

Barrett merely clasped him on the shoulder. He didn't need to say it, and Zack might've punched him if he had, but the gesture practically screamed, 'it was good knowing you'.

Well, too bad. He wanted to punch him anyway.

"Isn't this a bit much to ask someone who doesn't even know this girl?" he couldn't help but ask. Tifa immediately looked like realisation dawned on her. Like she just remembered _now_ that he had never actually met this girl that they were supposed to save. "Oh, right, I'm sorry Zack-"

"You're the best chance," Cloud said decisively. He looked up. The fact that this guy was _looking __up __at __him_ and yet still _giving __him __orders_… well.. Zack wasn't sure if it was inspiring or belittling, that he was about to-

"Ugh," he groaned. "Fine."

"Really?" Tifa smiled, leaning forward slightly.

"Knew I could count on you," Barrett laughed. Yes. He laughed.

"If I die," Zack continued, ignoring the other two, "um…" _bury__me__in__sector__seven_. "Bury me outside of Midgar." That sounded better, and he… well… "I'd ask if you could bury me in Gongaga, but I doubt you'd want to carry a corpse for that long… or if you _could_."

"You won't die," Cloud assured, "not unless you're a moron."

"Ha!" Zack laughed hoarsely. "Right. We'll just see about that!" He wasn't sure if that was sarcasm or genuine. He didn't really want to know, either.

* * *

><p>Was he really smart? Maybe Cloud's comment had been sarcasm, because going in just to get captured and cause a diversion seemed like a really, really stupid thing to do. As in, <em>moronic<em>. His back rested against the smooth concrete of the Shinra building. Next to him he could feel cool air-conditioning escaping the slight cracks of the glossy glass doors that lead to Shinra's lobby. If he went in, and _no__one__came_… that would probably be the most awkward point in his entire life.

The others were off to the side, where Cloud said that there was an emergency exit. However, from their double-check to make sure Zack's part was necessary, they had listened in from the door. From inside they heard voices. Movement. People. There were guards that were stationed on the inside. Meaning that they were all hanging out just behind one tiny little door.

Meaning that Zack's role in this… was unfortunately necessary.

"If I had something explosive, I would be able to just throw it in and be done with it," He sighed, before tightening his grip on the sword, and, deciding to be flashy, he spun and swung his blade, forcing it to slash along the glass, with hopefully enough force to shatter it.

Okay, so maybe he really wanted to know what the hell the spring exactly did.

It gave way, like he expected, only half-way through the swing it struck out, the blade contracting and expanding. It sunk closer, then a spring shoved it back forward. Extra force. Nice. The glass shattered.

Zack had never been in the lobby of Shinra before, and being there _now_ made him slightly sick. It also turned something deep in his gut, and made his hand twitch. He had the very understandable itch to completely trash the entire building, but the moment he heard a door slam open, he knew that time was more or less cut short.

Two double staircases, some crappy – nice – low couches and a sign. Basically. He'd go upstairs. Quickly, making sure that he was actually running away from the threat and not towards it, he searched out the source of the noise.

At least ten or so men stood in formation, all wearing helmets that covered their faces, stupid goggles included. Case in point why he didn't even consider joining the infantry even though it was free for submission. The front row raised their weapons.

Zack didn't move. He felt sort of stupid, but at the same time he felt sort of bloodthirsty. It was an awkward combination that didn't feel like him at all. He hated it, but he hated Shinra more. He tensed slightly, blade being drawn up. Think.

He needed to dodge. Fast.

He gave them a half-hearted smirk.

"State your business!" one of them called out, someone at the back, who wore a slightly different uniform.

"I just cut down the front door, what do _you_ think my business is?" he hollered back, and then he bolted. There might be stories of SOLDIERS that could deflect bullets with their swords… but… um… he was _not _SOLDIER.

He ducked low as gunfire hailed on him, running up the steps two at a time in an effort to clear the stairs before the chasing infantrymen could manage to reach the bottom of the stairs and shoot up his ass. He really, _really _didn't want to die running away.

The dark blue disappeared from under his feet in a moment, and before he could fully register that he had made it to the second level, gunshots rang around his ears, coming from both in front of him and behind him. _Shit_. Bad idea, bad idea! He looked up before rolling off to the side, catching sight of a small army of more infantrymen who had been occupying the second level.

They were all so far away! If he were SOLDIER, it would have been easy, he could have even cut out the lights because his eyesight would have been so good – or at least, that was what he heard. Why didn't he ask for a gun? Really? Swords were useful against monsters and other sword-wielders. He was a soft, squishy person who-

Whose entire life ended down in Sector Seven.

Okay. So he wouldn't loose any sleep for killing anyone here. Maybe a receptionist, definitely office people, but infantrymen? Probably not. Maybe. It wasn't like he had never killed a person before… okay, so he _might __have_… once. It was still pretty up in the air whether or not that SOLDIER 3rd was still alive.

He rushed, trying to move fast enough that they wouldn't be able to aim. Bringing up the sword – that he daren't say was his – he slashed across the closest man's chest, before kicking out, and launching him into someone else, taking them both down.

Alright – quick analysis.

There were three people to his right; the first had taken a step back at his quick approach. Zack nodded to himself, whether it was physically or in his head, he did not care, and he sidestepped along to where the first man stood, raising his gun. Leaning back slightly, setting himself off balance but putting him out of the range of the guard's weapon, Zack grabbed the gun, and lifted up with his free hand while with the other he slammed the handle of the sword into the guy's forearm.

He heard the guard cry out at he released his weapon, and Zack quickly loosened his grip on the gun in order to hold onto the trigger while at the same time ducking down so that his body was hidden behind the man whose arm he had probably just broken.

Question: was he actually good or was he just _really, __really_ lucky? He dropped the sword for a moment, before gripping the rifle in the same manner that the others were. More voices. Great. Just _great_. The other asses decided to join the party.

Question, how long exactly was he supposed to go on before he let himself get caught? How much time did the others need to use the emergency escape to infiltrate Shinra?

A bullet whizzed past and cut shallowly into his left shoulder. Zack gasped, his immediate reaction to hold down the wound squashed down as he lifted the gun and began to fire blindly, hoping to distract the twenty or so people left.

_This __is __madness_.

All of this to get to _one __girl_ – a girl he had _not __even __met __yet!_ Then again, this was acting as a good stress reliever against Shinra. He needed to go on.

_They were people too._

He could have _been_ one of those people.

Right. Okay. Fine. So he won't _try_ to kill them. If they died that was their own fault. He heard a hitch in the gun. Cursing. He dropped it before he was more than fully aware that it was out of ammo. This was far too gun-ho. That, and the fact that he had just rushed in without a plan seemed really stupid at the moment.

Then again, what exactly was he supposed to have planned out? He didn't know the numbers, or the layout. His eyes caught on the elevators. Okay. There's a good escape route. Unless such low level guards had enough clearance to completely shut down the elevator system.

He grabbed the sword with his good arm, the other feeling as if ice had spread through his system. He didn't have enough time to use a materia to heal it, he needed to get cover first. That, and with the level it was at, he would need to get the bullet out first. Unless it wasn't there; he really could not tell.

The guards were shouting to one another, but he ignored them. He clanked up from where the person who cradled their arm lay on the ground… now dead. Zack paused a moment, before looking up and finally hearing the conversation going on around him.

"I…I shot him!" one person yelled hysterically, and Zack had a feeling the man wasn't talking about him, but rather the man that now lay dead beside him. "I… he's dead!"

"It's a casualty, Garrison!" Someone else yelled out. "Now capture the terrorist who did that!"

Zack, holding his sword tightly, leaped away from what little protection the corpse gave him, and tackled the closest guard, three feet away. They cared about their men, obviously. Faster than he thought his body could handle, Zack, dragged the guard up by the neck and kicked the gun away.

The blade glinted off the fluorescent lights above.

The others froze, their weapons uncertain, as Zack held his sword to the guard's throat. With a quick movement, he took the time to tear the helmet off. That way they could see his face, see a friend, and not decide to arbitrarily shoot them both.

"Stop!" The guard wearing the slightly different uniform called out. "What do you want?"

Zack paused, blinking. _It __had __actually __worked_?

"I'd like for you to stop shooting at me," he said lightly. "And I would also like to see a friend of mine." This really was _not_ a part of the plan that the others had come up with, but it most certainly hadn't been in his, either.

He'd just have to get 'caught' on some other level. After all, he honestly doubted that Shinra would allow for some guy to wander around after causing such a commotion in their own building. And bloodshed.

There were around twenty or so men, four were still on the ground with a pool of bright crimson spilling from them, probably dead, including the man whose arm he had hit to take his gun. Nine or so were also on the ground, but moving and putting pressure on limbs or their guts. The rest were uncertain, hanging around with their guns now loosely in their hands.

"Come on now," the man who he held as hostage gulped loudly. "You don't want to do this."

Zack tilted his head slightly. "Against Shinra, of course I do," he shrugged. "You did drop a plate on my home after all."

The man tensed, his head lowered slightly.

"That was AVALANCHE's doing," he said softly, and the others remained cautiously silent.

"Then why exactly were they running for their lives underneath Sector Seven as the plate came crashing down?" Zack asked lightly, glaring at the other soldiers.

The leader shifted uncomfortably. "Let him go."

"'Him,'" Zack mused. "Hey, what's your name, anyway?" He was probably scaring all of them, but it was an expected side effect of having to try to be 'positive' and yet at the same time try to not consider them Shinra even while they wore Shinra uniforms.

"Kunsel," the man introduced. "You?"

He opened his mouth to answer, before remembering who (or rather what) he was supposed to pretend to be. "Um… Angeal's copy." Damn, that sounded stupid. The others tensed, but Kunsel shifted, as if he _knew_ he really wasn't.

"He does… sort of… look like him." One of the guards cautioned, shifting nervously.

Zack glanced questionably down at Kunsel, who seemed to have relaxed slightly at hearing it. Why? Didn't this Angeal betray Shinra along with a whole lot of other shit that branded the man a traitor?

The elevator dinged. It made all of them jump slightly, and from it stepped out a middle aged worker, uniform in hand and purse dangling from an arm. She froze in shock, staring at everyone and the scene in horror, and then Zack took his chance.

He rushed, Kunsel in hand, until both of them were in the elevator and, shoving the unarmed guard to the ground, he nervously pushed the button to close the doors with haste, before quickly hitting the number '38' on the long range of floors.

A pain flooded through his neck, and before he could even comprehend what was happening, his face was against the plush blue carpet of the elevator, a persistent force against his back.

"I used to be a SOLDIER 2nd you know." Kunsel began, pushing his boot into the space between Zack's shoulder blades.

Zack couldn't help but wince at the pain it brought. He had landed on the wounded shoulder too…

"Is that right?"

"Yes." Kunsel lifted the weight on his foot. "You may not look like Angeal, but he had the same opinion about Shinra."

Oh. Okay. Was that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing?

"So," Zack breathed heavily into the carpet. "If you were in SOLDIER, why exactly are you a…" he took in a deep breath as Kunsel increased the pressure, "guard?"

"I got demoted due to a claim that I was an insider who worked with Angeal or Genesis. There was no merit to it, so the Director had demoted me until the suspicions cleared."

"My luck!" Zack winced as Kunsel dug his boot deeper into the middle of his back, and this time, Zack had to growl from the pain. In a moment, it was gone, the pain, the pressure, and the boot.

"Shinra is a myriad of conspiracies and politics," Kunsel explained, leaning against the smooth glass as the elevator rose. "It's like a web of lies."

What was he telling him for? Zack heaved himself up, twisting his body so that he sat, leaning against the opposite side of the elevator. For the first time, he was able to look at this 'Kunsel'. Light, tussled hair, much unlike both Zack's own and Cloud's. His face was unremarkable, so Zack couldn't even recall if he had seen him during the whole fiasco in Junon…

"Do you always wear a mask?" Zack asked, for the first time placing a hand and putting pressure on the bleeding bullet wound. So much for the shirt – he had really liked it too. "Helmet, I mean."

Kunsel looked nervous, his hand itched towards his face. When Zack mentioned the helmet, he licked his lips anxiously.

"Usually." The SOLDIER admitted. "I worked in infantry for four years before actually making it into the SOLDIER program. I suppose I just got used to it."

"Why are you helping me?" Better get straight to the point. There was no use in dawdling. Kunsel's gaze flickered out to the city of Midgar, so luminous at night.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Who said I am?"

"You haven't taken the sword."

"You're wounded," Kunsel shot back, but made no move to touch Zack's blade, where blood had slowly began to dry.

"You haven't changed the floor number," Zack gripped his shoulder more tightly, nodding over to the panel. "I doubt you have that good luck." Or that Zack had bad enough luck to end up pushing the button that _coincidentally _happened to be the floor that this Kunsel needed to get off on.

"I don't." He admitted. He fidgeted a bit before sighing and leaning over to the control panel, his finger firmly pressing on the button '51'. "You have until then to convince me to let you off at any other floor."

"What's on fifty-one?"

"The Director's Office," Kunsel explained, reaching down and grabbing the handle of the blade, before leaning back up, twisting the blade until it spun lightly on its point. "He'll want to know why you know about Angeal's copies. They aren't common knowledge. Infantrymen only know rumours."

"A guy named Cloud told me." He was honest, but then again, he sort of had to be. He needed to declare that he knew something, but he couldn't tell them _everything_… because that was stupid. Someone with information was alive; someone without information was dead.

"Colonel Strife?" Kunsel froze up. "Cloud Strife?"

"I don't know his last name," Zack held up his hands as Kunsel's face got just a _tad_ too close. "He was the replacement for Sephiroth when he went AWOL or something."

"That's Colonel Strife."

Jeez, had he honestly wanted to get into SOLDIER? He didn't know if he could handle calling everyone colonel or lieutenant or brigadier or general. He'd get mixed up. Then fired. Then he'd get pissed off anyway.

"You mean he's still alive?"

Zack paused a moment. "Yup. Pretty damn sure." He winced as the nod he gave Kunsel shifted him unintentionally, and his shoulder flared in pain. He'd really have to get that bullet out and he _really_ didn't want to do it with his fingers.

"Do you know why he left Shinra?"

No. Should he admit that though? Cautiously, he shook his head in the negative. "Nope."

Kunsel relaxed slightly. "Why are you here then?"

"To save a pretty girl." Might as well make it as retarded sounding as he could, considering he'd have to be very low in the IQ department to think that storming Shinra's building was a good thing… or that he'd succeed. Kunsel gave him a dry look. "No, honestly, some girl named Aerith was kidnapped by Shinra and I'm here to save her."

"Do you know why she was kidnapped?"

"Nope."

"So you just stormed Shinra without knowing anything?" He was incredulous. It was perfectly understandable. Zack felt pretty stupid for going through with it.

"I guess?"

"Why?"

Kunsel's face was hilarious. If laughing did not hurt, then he would have, but it did… so… right. He didn't. That was the point. Why were his thoughts getting muddled up?

"Do you even _know_ this girl?"

"Nope."

He swore that if Kunsel had room, he would have fallen over. The man looked so disbelieving and so pale. Then, he laughed. It was an expected reaction. Only the completely ridiculous could make a person laugh like that, and he had reached it.

"I was asked to, okay?" Zack tried to unconsciously climb to his feet, however he found that it was far more comfortable on the floor. There were eleven more levels to go until 38, so he had time. Zack quickly glanced out at the night, shocked to be able to see the edges of Midgar. Strange. Living in the slums sure made the place seem massive, but now it seemed like a tightly contained prison.

"Do you have some sort of hero complex?" Kunsel lifted the sword, pointing its blade towards Zack's neck, but a foot or so off from actually touching skin. "Only someone suicidal would try that because they were asked to."

"I really don't think I care."

"Thinking is completely different than knowing." Kunsel dropped the weapon, and crossed his arms. "There's more to this plan of yours isn't there? If Colonel Strife is a part of this small little rescue team, then there had to be more to it than…" Kunsel's mouth twisted as he looked almost distastefully at the other occupant in the elevator. "_You_."

"_Me,_" Zack repeated. "Jeez, you don't have to make it sound like _that_."

"You can't even move that arm of yours, can you?" Kunsel sighed, and Zack merely glared. He tried to twitch his fingers, but he couldn't feel if they moved or not.

"So?" Zack shot back. "I…" He what? _Meant __to __get __shot_? Hardly. He thanked whoever there was to thank, that he was right-handed. That, and he was somewhat ambidextrous, since, well, he had simply gotten used to swinging a sword around with two hands.

"I can't let you go."

"I will take it as a compliment that you even considered it."

Kunsel laughed lightly.

"You will get that wound treated properly."

Try to make that 'situation treated properly'.

"You showed plenty of promise, who knows, Hojo might take an interest in you." The words were flat, dull, and highly sarcastic. Zack started to feel queasy as the numbers increased.

"So," the elevator slowed to a stop, and the doors opened. Kunsel calmly closed them, Zack's sword threateningly in hand in case Zack were to try something stupid. "I'm taking it that I better hope that they execute me, no questions asked?"

Kunsel nodded. "There was a rumour that spread along the upper levels that had many people 'fired,'" using his right hand, he air quoted the word, "and never heard from again."

"What was it? The rumour?"

"Experimentation clauses that Hojo had to abide by, and how apparently those lax codes were all broken and that the entire trio of 1st's were all monsters."

The elevator was getting closer, Zack couldn't keep his eyes off of it. He really did not want to die. He really did not want to get experimented on. _He really wished he had not accepted this plan_. But he had.

"Any chance of me making it out of this building alive?" Zack's grip on his shoulder tightened as the anxiety grew. Only a few floors left…

"Hope that whatever Colonel Strife has planned works."

_Actually_, Zack thought, _it was a girl named Tifa, who is overbearing and motherly, and it was backed up by a man who at first worried so much over the state of his daughter and friends that even after a week he's still fretting, and then Cloud, who only stated some facts, and let the others come up with their own idea._

That was completely convincing.

"Yup," he nodded, his voice slightly higher than it should be. "I guess I couldn't get you to mutiny, huh?"

Kunsel laughed. "I wish I could, but even I have my secrets." The elevator arrived at its destination. "Most of them are integrated in Shinra's very walls."

Okay. Creepy. His face must have said more than his thoughts produced, because when Kunsel looked back, he laughed lightly.

"That's a new face," he bent down and gripped Zack's left arm tightly. "You know," he said conversationally. "You sure are talkative for a person who doesn't know that the audio in the video surveillance is cut off due to Turk and SOLDIER confidential cases…"

* * *

><p>"Why do I," Barrett wheezed, "feel like the kid got the better end of the deal?" He couldn't do it, couldn't climb any longer. It was just <em>too <em>_damn __long_. "This doesn't even take you right to the top!"

"Come on, Barrett! Move it!" Tifa's breathing was just as laboured, Cloud's footsteps had to pause at the top step.

"If we don't keep moving, it might be too late for Zack."

"I'm not like you!" Barrett's mouth was dry, and his voice was hoarse. "I'm not some ex-SOLDIER, yo!"

"Neither is Zack," Tifa reminded. "If he ends up dead because you couldn't climb some stairs-"

Barrett glared, before he resumed his climbing. "What are all ye doing? Move your asses!"

Tifa gave him a dry look, before she forced her numb body to continue to move up the seemingly endless flights of stairs. Cloud had told them to reach the top, and only when they reached the top would it be completely safe to use the doors. If they tried to move get through one of the departments, they would have to not only navigate the massive labyrinth of cubicles, but they would also have to make sure that none of the night-shift workers called security – in short, it was an impossible and time-consuming endeavour. Cloud's own feet hesitated a moment, before he too began to resume climbing the stairs once more. They _should_ be close to the top. Even he was getting tired of seeing the exact same hallway each time he turned around. It felt like he was going _nowhere_.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

Aerith paced uneasily in her cell. She tapped her fingers against her crossed arms, shuffled her feet, and even forced her gait into an uneven pattern in order to pass the time.

"Calm down, Aerith," she whispered to herself as she paced around the small white cell. White, white, white, white! The sheets, the walls, the tiles, the bed frame – _everything was white_. It was maddening.

She was scared.

She wouldn't console herself with saying that Cloud would come and save her. She wasn't a helpless girl! She _could_ take care of herself… only… trying to get out of a white room with a locked door proved to be somewhat beyond her capabilities. With an aggravated huff she sank down on the bed, and thought back on the… _scientist_…

Hojo. The man was oil and grease and slime all rolled into one. He needed to shower more often, but she had a feeling that he pushed hygiene behind his own obsessions – namely his 'experiments'. The crooked nose, like someone had smashed it beyond repair, his false teeth and the bags under his eyes – every part of him made her skin crawl.

She scratched her scalp in paranoia.

_His nose is probably a weak spot_, she thought, _if I can just hit him there hard enough, it might break again._ Then she would just have to outrun the guards that were positioned around every hallway. She hummed to herself. _Come on, think!_

How would one get out of a madman's laboratory?

_"Have you heard_?" The faint voice sounded beyond the thick door, and Aerith's head snapped towards it before she found herself bolting (as quietly as she could do so; it's important to be sneaky) to the door. She pressed her ear against it. Was it Cloud and the others? Despite herself she truly did hope so.

_"Hear what?"_ Come on; come on, Aerith danced lightly on her feet in anticipation. _Just get to the good stuff already!_

_"Some guy claiming to be Angeal's copy showed up and caused something of a bloodbath on the second floor." _Aerith frowned. Who? Did Cloud look like this Angeal person? She looked to the ground for a moment, her mouth twisting in contemplation. No, Cloud was a well-known SOLDIER 1st. _She_ had known who he was when he introduced himself. So…

_It's probably the plate._ Yeah, that seemed plausible. Someone who lost everything would want to get revenge on Shinra. Oh! She might be able to use this time to escape! …Once she got out of the room.

_"He was taken to the Director's office."_

_"Doesn't that seem a little much?" _Aerith pressed her ear against the cool door again, hoping to hear everything she could. _"He's still going to end up here, won't he? After all, an Angeal copy would be something that the professor's interested in."_

_"They want to know _why _he's claiming to be Angeal's copy. He isn't, before you ask. That, and I'd imagine that they would very much like to know how _he _knows Angeal in the first place. If you think about it, it does sound a little suspicious."_

_"If he doesn't say anything, he'd probably end up here, wouldn't he?"_

_"That's right." _Aerith's eyes widened as she processed the information. If someone _else_ was in the same cell with her, then the chances of escape would be effectively doubled! _"He's wounded too, so they would probably send him here anyway."_

_"Hojo doesn't like patching people up. Not unless he can get something from it."_

_"Shh!"_ The first guard hushed, and then there was a pause of silence. _"If Hojo hears us…"_

_"Right."_

_"Anyway, you're right. I heard it was his arm, and just a petty bullet wound. Hojo wouldn't be interested in him at all." _This was useful. Aerith contemplated the wisdom of speaking up, saying that _she_ could be the one who could heal him, considering the fact that having a person gain a gangrenous infection would make escaping complicated.

_"So? You're saying that we have to fix him up."_

_"I'm not. I'd probably make it worse anyway."_

Now. Now was the perfect time to speak up.

"I can help him!" she called through the door. "If you don't want to, just put him in the same cell as me." Shoot. Did that sound too obvious? She sure hoped not; she wasn't that great at being witty, nor was she that great in lying. Well, she wasn't lying! She was telling the truth, it was just her motives that made it seem like a lie. _Well, I would have wanted to help him regardless_.

_"You've been listening in on us?" _The first guard asked wryly, before he started a muffled conversation with the other guard. _"All right, we'll give you a half hour to heal him, before he'll be moved to another cell. Got it?"_

Not as good as she wanted, but good enough. She could make a plan with him in that time – she'd just have to keep her voice really low, so that the camera in the corner wouldn't be able to pick anything up. "Yes," a smile began, "Yes, I've got it!"

* * *

><p>"You're heartless, you know that?" Zack griped as he was led forcefully along a long hallway to this 'director's office'. "Come on, help a guy out!"<p>

"I'm sorry, I can't do that." Kunsel was pretty straight-laced – _annoyingly so_. "The Director will ask you questions, so you should…" Kunsel paused, his footsteps slowing, and before Zack knew it, Kunsel's mouth was _too close_ to his ear. "Lie."

The discretion used was a pretty obvious hint, and forcing his head away, Zack glanced quickly along the corridor. Three cameras – and those were the ones he found after a _quick glance_. Ah, smart one there, Kunsel.

"Jeez," he wanted to wave a hand in dismissal, but the only one he could feel was the on that Kunsel held in a vice behind his back. "No need to threaten me."

Kunsel smiled in gratitude. Good save, Zack. Good save. Good thing that he caught on to the fact that the sound was _obviously not cut out_ in this hallway, otherwise the both of them might get in shit. Or scratch that, Kunsel might, because Zack was already screwed as it was.

Everything was a performance in this building, wasn't it?

They turned a corner, and then sharply around another. Zack bit down a yelp of pain as Kunsel _purposefully_ slammed his wounded left shoulder into a wall. Great, so dehumanizing begins. Gaia knew how good Shinra was at _that_.

"Watch it!" he barked out, glaring at Kunsel who only gave a tiny apologetic look.

Without warning, Kunsel then stopped. The action caused Zack to yank his own arm back and a flash of pain to erupt. Ouch. Basta- A door clicked open, and suddenly Zack was thrown into another room, this white-bright, like he was thrown into a room with an unnatural sun. The shock was substantial, and Zack found himself unable to see a thing. He forced his eyes shut, and the glowing red behind his eyelids worried him. Kunsel was behind him again and before Zack could regain his footing, or his senses he was shoved him down into a metal seat.

"Hey!" Zack tried to stand, but Kunsel and his inhuman strength forced him in place. _Shit_, Zack tried to squint and look past the unnatural brightness to see _something_ but couldn't. A click was heard, and Zack knew – without even looking – that he was now handcuffed. A quick glance, and he saw the vague outline of his hand. _Why was this place so bright!_

"It's even worse for me," Kunsel whispered. "I can hardly see anything but white, but this is the interrogation room, so…" he trailed off. "I'm not certain what this does for intimidation purposes, but it sure is unnerving, isn't it?"

"It's going to burn my retinas."

Kunsel laughed. "I'm surprised you know what retinas are."

"Do I look stupid to you?" Zack jerked his arm, only to be met with resistance halfway through the action. In the brightness he couldn't even _see_ what the handcuff was attached to.

"Not at all." Kunsel didn't handcuff the other arm, and for that he was thankful. "Good luck." And then, with a pat on the back, Kunsel was gone. Zack tossed his head over to his right to where the door was, and for a moment he saw a rectangle of black, before the door shut and everything was _burning white_ again. Jeez, where did they _get_ the ideas for places like this?

He could reach his eyes with his cuffed hand without bending unnaturally, so he did. He had to crouch lower to his legs, but that was fine – _anything_ to get rid of the blinding light. Hell, he couldn't even tell if someone else was in the room with him!

"You know," a calm voice started, and Zack couldn't help but think _I knew it_ before he scowled into his fingers. "You're one of the few who actually do that."

What, cover his eyes with his hands? He wasn't about to tell the guy that it was because his other hand wasn't handcuffed.

"I'm a special case." He was probably just special in general, but at the moment he was disoriented and confused.

"You admitted to be Angeal's copy."

"Yes."

"You are _not_ Angeal's copy."

Oh, damn, the way that guy spoke was irritating; calm and collected and so _devoid_ of any emotion that it made Zack just want to hit him. Hard.

He didn't say anything. Kunsel told him to lie, but he didn't say anything as to what he should lie about. Generally, it was best to allow others to come to their own conclusions, because then they accept it, and you didn't have to think of some complex lie.

"Are you working for Angeal then? Or Genesis?" Neither, but the Lifestream would turn purple before Zack admitted to it. "What is your purpose here?"

Zack still said nothing. Pain was going to come; he could almost smell it – which was a weird concept to even think about. He still had his sad little Restore materia on him, but that was about it. The rest of them had been lost… _just say it_… when Sector Seven's plate crashed.

Fingers wove into his hair, and for a brief moment, it felt nice. That is, of course, until the person pulled at the roots and shoved his head forward, slamming his face into the corner of a cool, slick object. A table probably – metal, probably.

It _hurt_.

He cursed aloud, swearing under his breath, unable to do anything else as the bright, burning red behind his eyes became bright and white with the pain.

"Assholes!" he cursed to them, his chained hand curling into a fist.

"Whom do you work for?" Of course the guy had perfect grammar – _of course he did_.

Say something stupid, say something stupid – _but not too stupid_.

"You'll have to ask nicely," he bit out, making sure that his tongue was safely inside his mouth, in case his interrogator arbitrarily decided to slam his head again. He liked his tongue the way it was, thank you very much.

"Fine then," the voice got closer, and colder. "Sir," mockery wasn't nice, but Zack wasn't planning to mention that, "would you care to disclose the information as to who sent you here?"

"Well then," he forced a smirk. Dammit, he was shaking. "I just so happen to be a part of this gang called the… Tomatoes. Don't ask. It's a long story."

"Is that so?" The voice was so dry it sounded like sandpaper… in a way that actually made sense. Gah! Calm down, Zack! Think, think, think! And don't hyperventilate!

"Yes. We are a huge environmentalist group. I think the original point of the group was to somehow argue…" argue what? "The fact that," keep going…" the tomatoes are horrible down in the slums. Cause of the mako reactors and the fact that food always dies and gets… rotten… in the slums."

"What a just cause."

"It is! Have _you_ ever had a tomato that was not only bruised and rotten but also freezer burnt because that's the only way the slums can get their tomatoes?" Now that he thought on it, _that_ was probably the reason that he despised the red fruit. It just sucked.

"You told the guards that you were Angeal's clone."

"Hypothetically." What did that even mean? "Angeal holds the same opinion as the Tomatoes, so he helped them out."

"You're here for _that_ aren't you?" The grip in his hair tightened. "Pity for you; the Aphrodine has been suspended."

"What an odd thing to say." Zack had no idea what Aphrodine was, but the fact that his interrogator mentioned it so casually, made Zack actually want to steal it. If he saw it, he would. That is he could figure out what it was. A weapon? An experiment? A drug? Who knew?

The interrogator scoffed. "Take him away," he said to someone that Zack couldn't see, nor could he hear. "Put him in Hojo's lab. Tell him I want an analysis on him to see if he really is a clone. If he is, Hojo can have him after we interrogate him again. If not, execute him."

* * *

><p>"For a," Tifa huffed, as the three of them quickly rested at the top of the stairwell, "fire escape, that sure took a long time."<p>

"Shinra did not invest in the safety of its employees. The fire escape was more of an add on."

"Feels like it," Tifa groaned as she began to fan herself with her hand. "Are you okay, Barrett?"

It was a pointless question, as Barrett could barely fill his lungs up with enough air in order to respond.

Tifa lightly patted him on the shoulder. "We made it!" It seemed like a poor consolation prize, but it would have to do. The large man wheezed, but Tifa shrugged, taking it as a sound of agreement. "What next, Cloud?" She forced her own breathing to settle.

"We need to find Zack."

"And Aerith?"

Cloud frowned. "Zack should be where Aerith is. If she isn't; then she would have to be on Hojo's floor." Cloud hovered at the door, his ear pressed lightly against the solid metal. "Either way, Zack is in more danger than Aerith is."

"How," Barrett wheezed, however he could actually talk again, "how do you know that?"

Cloud held his hand in warning, telling them to be quiet, before he relaxed and lowered it. "Zack just attacked Shinra."

Barrett blinked, his eyes near bloodshot from heightened blood pressure. He nodded. "Oh, yeah, right."

Cloud suddenly leaned into the door, opening it. He stood stiffly for a moment outside of it, before motioning for the other two to follow him. In a moment, the door was quietly shut, and they were all awkwardly standing in a brightly lit hallway.

"Cloud," Tifa began as she looked along the corridor, "where are we?"

"I'm not sure: it was never really high on my priorities list to know where all the fire exits were."

Tifa stared at him in shock, before shaking her head in disappointment. Only Cloud-

"You don' know where the hell we're are?" Barrett asked, too loudly for the art of subterfuge. "You one crappy ass guide, you know tha'?"

"And you have tantrums like a toddler. Now get off my back!" Cloud snapped back, before haphazardly choosing a route. It really didn't matter which way he decided to go.

"Yo, I still don't know why we didn't go to the next floor."

Tifa looked back at Barrett, who had turned to muttering about how he had never wanted to see another set of floors in his life.

"That's simple," Cloud shrugged. "We need to find a keycard; I figure someone must have one." Cloud glanced back, to see the polite confusion on Tifa's face and the uncomprehending countenance of Barrett.

Cloud sighed. "From floors sixty and up, a keycard is required to gain access. However, as a safety measure there are a few guards on each floor that have the next floor's card key. Meaning," Cloud stressed, in order to stop Barrett from shouting once more, "that it would be easier to find the keycard override."

"There is one?" Tifa trotted along, sending Barrett an apologetic glance, since, after all, Cloud _was_ the one that had worked there before. "Why?"

Cloud hesitated slightly at Tifa's proximity, and before he answered, took a half a step away. "The doors malfunction continuously," he explained, before shaking his head, and setting his shoulders properly. "The override was necessary in case the higher ups were incapable of getting out."

"And why do you know this?" Barrett huffed, attempting to cross his arms as the small group continued on along the wide hallway.

"One of SOLDIER's jobs is to protect the building of Shinra, and then it is to protect the _interests_ of Shinra." Cloud nearly snarled, his hands clenched into fists and his gait's length increased. Tifa needed to jog in order to keep up.

"Cloud," she tried, but when she tried to place a hand on his arm, he jerked her away.

He froze, hesitating a bit, before placing a small smile on. "Sorry, Tifa," he nodded his apology to her, his steps slowing. "Bad memories, I guess."

"Enough flirtin'!" Barrett growled. "We're here to save that weird kid and some girl, right? So let's get movin'!"

Tifa blinked in slight shock before blushing and nodding rapidly. Cloud glanced coolly at Barrett, before turning around and staring at the wall…

Or… a map of the floor they were on.

* * *

><p>Aerith always had the unhealthy habit of gnawing on her lip when she was nervous – that and wringing her hands and playing with her hair. She just couldn't help it, and no matter how many times she <em>tried<em> to stop, every time she got off guard, she found herself doing her horrible habits once more.

Now was one of those times, as she waited for the new prisoner that was more certainly going to be thrown into her cell any moment now. She had asked for a first aid kit, and was told she would get one when he arrived. They also warned her – rather harshly – that if she tried anything like a suicide attempt or anything of the sort, then she was going to _wish_ she had not been born.

Hojo had a scary way of making certain that his favourites stayed alive, they had told her. She wasn't sure why, since she had never even considered the escape of ending her life, but their threat still scared her. Or maybe it was the knowledge that regardless of how a wound had come about, if this… Hojo were the one to treat her, then she would wish she were dead.

How terrifying was that?

She clammed her teeth tightly, so that her lip wouldn't suffer from broken skin. Never before had she been so nervous, so scared. The reality was sinking in on her, but still, she was going to escape. Come hell or high water – she was going to get out of here. Her mother had managed it, regardless of how little she could remember of that time, but her mother had done it. She had gotten herself and her daughter out.

Two fully-grown people would be much easier.

_I hope he can fight_. If he could, that would make it much easier. Of course, he had broken into Shinra, so he should at the very least have some talent, right? _Or reckless abandon,_ she frowned. He was alive; he had to have been at least _okay_. Even if he was half as good as Cloud was, the two of them could probably manage it. She didn't have her materia – except of course, her mother's, which was secure in a small pouch around her neck.

They had tried to use it, it didn't work – they thought it was a marble.

The doors slid open, and a body was thrown in, and then, nicely, a first aid kit was placed next to the entrance, and the door slid shut. Aerith tensed at the sight, as she unconsciously dragged her feet closer to herself. In an instant, she was standing, and then, deciding to forgo any formalities – she poked him with her shoe.

"Why do people have this unconscious need to step on me?" The voice that whined was young. Aerith blinked in shock before firmly putting her foot on the ground.

"Perhaps it's because you have an unhealthy habit of falling on the ground?" she suggested, keeping her distance. It was meant to be a joke, and she only realized a little late that the person may not enjoy her brand of humour, or it might not be the right time for it. She pressed herself against the wall for safe measure. If he suddenly became violent, thinking that she was some part of Shinra, she wanted to be as far away as she could.

"So rude!" He shifted. "Lemme guess," he rolled on his left side. "You'd be the kind soul who would normally help a poor guy up?"

His tone was light, however there was a darker undertone that just didn't sit well with her. She grew indignant, and placed her hands lightly on her hips.

"Of course I would!" She argued. "It's a different situation here!"

"You're _so_ right." The boy's sarcasm wasn't welcome. "Now, I'm sorry lady, but I can't really see much of anything except this _big_ blue spots, so if you're pretty, don't take any offense." He pushed himself up, and scooted himself backwards until his back hit the wall. Aerith's mouth fell open in shock.

"And what if I _was_ ugly, hmm?" Oh! _Boys! _They only cared about looks, didn't they? Shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow!

"Then I'd tell you to shove off because at the moment I'm having a _really_ bad day." He then hissed in pain. "Why'd they have to _break_ it?" he cursed under his breath, but Aerith would have none of that. Why –

"So you're really so shallow as to only be nice to a girl if she were pretty?"

"Well, you know," the boy replied easily – why was he so _good_ at these sorts of conversations? Aerith could barely swallow down her own offense long enough to string together a sentence. "I'd like to see something nice when I can finally _see_ again."

"Perhaps blindness is the Planet's way of telling you that you shouldn't judge people by the covers!" she stomped, and belatedly she realized that she was probably being petty, and arguing with him was not going to help them much any.

He became silent, and then, tilting his head up slightly so that the light hit his face, instead of casting it into dark shadow, he let out a bitter laugh. "It's taken enough, believe me."

Aerith didn't know how, but she _knew_. It was one of those revelations she had occasionally, and suddenly she felt awful. Not knowing what to say – not immediately, at the very least, she went over and picked up the first aid kit.

He was one of them, wasn't he?

"You… you knew people under sector seven, didn't you?" she asked gently. It made sense, suddenly. She had thought it was likely before, but to suddenly be faced with it…

The boy was silent, and she could make out the fundamentals of a good-looking face – only at the moment it was puffed up and his nose was starting to bruise horribly. She didn't think that it was broken, and his forehead was probably going to be sore for a while…

Aerith, wordlessly, opened the kit, her eyes drifting from his face to his left shoulder, where blood, ooze, and torn fabric were attached to the skin. His arm was held awkwardly, and Aerith frowned as she remembered the muttered sentence. His arm was broken too? That made this tricky.

She set out to clean the wound, being careful to not cause him pain, and then, suddenly, he spoke.

"Everyone."

"I'm sorry?" She took the gauze away from his wound.

"Everyone I knew was under that plate," he clarified, before his head fell forward. "Would you mind hurrying up a bit?" he chuckled, "I'd like to actually have an arm after all this."

Aerith felt like she should say something, but there was _nothing_ she could say that would make it better. Instead, she nodded, and set back to work.

She had only rudimentary knowledge of cleaning a wound. Clean it with a disinfectant, and she supposed getting the bullet out would be important too. She wouldn't dare try to suture it – if she messed up, then not only would he be in pain but she wouldn't know how to make it better.

"So you're here to avenge them?" Aerith murmured next to him, knowing that this was probably the start of the conversation that would get the both of them out of there – if he could fight with his arm in a sling, that is. She didn't want to think about trying to set it.

"That's part of it," he muttered back quietly, and Aerith wasn't sure if it was because he had caught on to her need for discretion, or if he was simply tired. "But I guess it's mostly to rescue a pretty girl."

Aerith rolled her eyes. "You're such a pig."

"Mmm," he agreed, while Aerith put away the cotton she used to clean it, and then, taking out a pair of tongs that she hoped was used for the purpose of getting shrapnel and bullets out, she hesitantly plunged it into the wound. The boy gasped in pain before slamming his jaw shut; screaming inside his mouth.

The utensil she was using hit something, and hoping that it was the bullet and not the bone, she closed the tongs and pulled the – hopefully – bullet out. It came, and blood burst from the wound along with it but when she dropped the bloody thing she had pulled, it hit the tile floor with a clink. She sighed in relief before hurriedly digging in the first aid kit and pulling out some cloth that she pressed to the wound to stop the bleeding. She held it there.

"So, this girl your looking for," Aerith gnawed lightly on her lip. "Why would she be in Shinra?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, 'you don't know'?" Aerith asked, incredulously. "You obviously love her, if you were willing to risk your life for her!"

"Never met her before – met her mother, but that crazy old bitch chased me out with a broom, so we're not on really good terms." The boy winced, sucking in a pained breath as she increased the pressure on the wound. "Name's Zack, by the way."

"Aerith," she replied, mostly in shock at his... _stupidity_.

The boy froze, before relaxing for a moment and laughing. "You're _kidding_ me!"

* * *

><p><em>AN: Here is the next chapter! Hope everyone enjoys the meeting of Zack and Aerith. Once again (and probably for ever chapter here on out) thanks to the wonderful _FullMentalPanic _for editing this and giving me much needed feedback. And an extra thank you to _Irish-Brigid _for telling me that Zack was right handed not left. I believe I fixed all those errors, but if anyone sees a moment where suddenly it is Zack's right arm that is hurt, not his left, then please show me where. READ AND REVIEW – because they make me really happy and reviews are the only way new readers can determine if a story is good or not, but feedback is preffered._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

* * *

><p>"You're<em> kidding<em> me!"

Aerith blinked in shock as she tilted her head to the side in wonder. "What?" she asked, confused, bemused, and any other way of saying 'shocked and or uncomprehending'. What a strange reaction. She blinked at him a few times, before slowly the pieces began to fit together.

"_Me_?" she asked incredulously. Her. This… man was here for _her_? No way!

"You _better _be pretty now," he warned softly, "otherwise I might just have to punch myself for doing something so stupid."

Of course – _of course_! She huffed.

"Why do my looks keep getting brought into the conversation?" she asked irritably, before looking off to the side. "How do you even know who I _am_?" Stalker. The guy was a stalker. He said he had met her mother – maybe he had seen a picture of her and had started to… no… the way he went on it sounded like he didn't know what she looked like at all…

"I'm assuming you know Cloud? Cause if you don't then this awkward little situation that's happening," he gestured between the two of them with his right arm, "it's not my fault."

A smile bloomed on her face, but before she could inanely shout out what she wanted to say with the exuberance she wanted to say it with, she swallowed lightly. "You know Cloud?" she ducked her head so that the camera wouldn't be able to accurately see her face. So… being rescued by a prince wasn't _really that bad_. It felt… nice.

She would have definitely gotten out by herself, though. Of course it was pretty silly to not accept any and all help when offered.

Her face felt slightly flushed. _Cloud is coming to rescue me_. The thought brought along with it the urge to giggle girlishly, however she felt it didn't suit the situation at all, so _don't do it Aerith_. He would probably think she was insane – he probably already did.

"Blonde, spiky hair, right? Some SOLDIER 1st and all that?" he asked, his voice dulling, like he was getting tired. Which was a possibility, if he had been running on pure adrenaline for who knew how long and suddenly he was sitting, being taken care of, and felt safe.

"Yes," she nodded, before removing the cloth meant to stop the bleeding. She dug into the first aid kit and pulled out a roll of bandages. She frowned slightly, before urging his arm upwards with light brushes of her hand. Once he lifted it up a decent amount, she began to wrap the cloth around, holding the bandage until it was tight and secure. "So… what's the plan?"

The guy laughed, and it shook his body subtly in a way she had never before noticed in someone. _Weird_. "Their plan was to have a distraction – me," he clarified quickly, "and then go and break in without everyone noticing and then rescuing the damsel and the poor sucker who got distraction duties."

Aerith giggled lightly, though she felt like it shouldn't be something that she _should_ giggle about. It was just the way he said it, she determined. "You must have been quite the distraction, if you actually made it here alive. I must say I am quite impressed."

"You better be."

She finished the bandage, holding it in place before searching in the first aid kit for something that could hold the bandage in place. "Do you want your sleeve?" she asked, glancing down at the soaked clump of fabric that bunched around his elbow before finally smoothing out into cloth along his forearm.

He was silent for a moment, before tilting his head to look at her, blinking harshly. "Probably not," he answered, before squinting. "You have… brown hair, right?"

Aerith didn't know why she felt shock, but in a moment it disappeared and she raised an eyebrow – one that probably needed plucking by now… "Um," she started blandly. "I do." What a strange topic change – at least hers was useful.

"That's _great_."

She couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic or trying to be funny, but failing. She gave him a strange look. "Okay…"

"I'm starting to be able to see again."

"Oh," Aerith cooed in understanding. "Then I might just have to knock you out before you can see my face. Wouldn't want to _ruin _the surprise or anything." Her eyes caught on a safety pin inside the kit, and she pulled it out deftly.

Zack laughed. "You just might," he agreed, and once more Aerith found herself slightly envious of his ability to converse. "The suspense is just nerve wracking!"

"Living on the edge of your seat if a very nice way to live." What was she even saying? It didn't make any sense – neither did the conversation. Or how they arrived to the conversation. "So…" she attempted, "are we just supposed to stay put and wait for them to rescue us?"

"Yes, yes," he waved her off and she felt slightly insulted. It was an important topic! Their freedoms could very well depend on what they were supposed to do! "And I think I like standing more than sitting."

"If it's next to a cliff then I might push you off!" she snapped, irritated at his light viewpoint. Why wasn't he taking it seriously? Why was she following through with his ramblings? It wasn't like she would _ever_ push someone off a cliff. She wouldn't be able to handle the noise… or the mess… or the fact that the person would inevitably die.

"You wouldn't," he declared, and she couldn't help the rise of irritation within her.

"And how would you know?"

"You just wouldn't. Call it intuition?" He shrugged his right shoulder, which made her wonder slightly whether or not he could move his left at all.

She didn't know how to respond. He was right, of course, but saying 'you're right' sounded like something that would just feed to his already large ego… or… it wasn't really an ego, was it? It was a solid defense so that she wouldn't ask any more about the plate. And sadly, she wasn't talented enough to break it away – she didn't even know where to start.

"There's a camera in the room, isn't there?" he whispered, and Aerith blinked out of her reverie. She nodded. "I still can't see that well," he reminded blandly, before sighing. "I have a restore materia on me; it would probably stop the bleeding."

Aerith paused in slight shock, before her brows crinkled and she was struck with confusion. "Why didn't you tell me _before_ I put the bandage on?" she asked, half incredulous. Glancing nervously over at the camera, she shifted her body so that he could reach properly to wherever it was that he was hiding the materia.

"I thought you were some lab rat!"

"I'm not a rodent!"

Zack paused, Aerith paused, and she felt her face heat up before realizing that the context she thought he was using 'rat' in wasn't the one he was.

"Never mind. You thought I was Shinra?"

He nodded. "'Hojo can have him after we interrogate him again. If not, execute him.'" His voice was grim and mocking. "Does that explain anything for you?"

Aerith shuddered, the tingles of vile wretchedness that crawled along her skin at even the mention of the name made her feel sick. "Everything," Inarticulate; try again Aerith. "That explains everything. I mean, I know what you mean. Hojo… is _slime_."

"What lovely things to say." His voice was slightly panicked, and Aerith noted that he finally began to move his hand down to his boot. His fingers itched down underneath the dark fabric. "Makes me want to meet him all the more."

"I'm sure." The words came automatically as she watched his movements with mild fascination. "He is someone you definitely want to avoid."

"Ouch, you probably hurt his feelings there."

"I'd hurt a lot more of him, if I could." Aerith looked the boy in the eyes, and was somewhat surprised to see a beautiful blue hue there. She lightly licked her lips and began to gnaw on them softly. His eyes were nothing like the unnatural pair that Cloud sported, they were darker, softer, yet at the same time brighter than anything she had seen before. "You have nice eyes." she blurted, and as she did so the unfocused gaze of her companion darted back to her, his hand froze.

"Having a good look, are we?" he asked. He was cocky, but endearing. It was such a strange combination that all Aerith could do was blink at him stupidly. "Don't worry, many people do."

Such… _audacity_! Aerith's mouth opened in play, since she felt like her expression was far too over-exaggerated for any realism to come from it.

"Is that so." Say something witty: this was… flirting after all. He was flirting with her, and he would keep doing it if she didn't say something that made him realize that she was not someone who he could tease relentlessly. Habits and dynamic needed to be initialized upon first meeting.

Which was a paraphrase of a ridiculously long lecture Elmyra had given her after Aerith had run home crying after a boyfriend she had (it lasted a total of two weeks, so she wasn't sure it even constituted as a 'boyfriend', but at the time it did) dumped her. He had teased and flirted, and then wham, he was suddenly actually dating someone else and broke it off with her.

So… witty… "I do wonder though," she started slowly, because things didn't come like a drop of a hat to her as it seemingly did to him. "I've had plenty of people tell me I have the most _striking_ eye colour. I bet mine garner more attention than yours do."

_Um. Okay Aerith, where did that come from exactly?_ Her face turned a slight pink as she realized she had not only _flirted back_ but also made it into a challenge! Oh, no…

_Cloud, now would be a good time for you to come and rescue us. _A crooked smile emerged on his face. It looked boyish and cocky and so _infuriating_ all at the same time that she just wanted to hit him. However, his face was smashed, his left arm was mutilated, he needed his legs to run and the only good arm he had was currently trying to find a restore materia buried somewhere in his socks.

"Is that so," he mimicked. "We'll just have to see about that later then, won't we?"

"If you think you're turning this into a game, then I can tell you _right-_

"Come on, it'll be fun. Once we get out, we'll keep a tally of how many people compliment our eye colour."

Aerith sulked, and narrowed her eyes for a moment. "The number of compliments, not number of people, and you cannot buy, ask, or lead a person into complimenting your eyes in _any_ way." Oh, great. What was she doing exactly? This was hardly the place to make childish bets as to whose _eyes people liked better_.

She would win, though. His eyes might be nice but you had to get close to see them. That, and Tifa already complimented her eyes, and Cloud couldn't stop looking at them. Already she had two votes. Well, unless they only counted from now onwards.

"Starting now."

"What I said doesn't count," she sounded stubborn, like some three year old pouting, but she knew she was smarter than that, so she shook away the imagery of herself in a diaper with a large pacifier in her mouth. It was an odd image anyway.

"Fine." He held his hand up, and in his fingers was a dimly glowing orb.

"Does that even work?" It looked almost to be stone. It looked like it worked less than her mother's materia, and that one _actually didn't work_.

"I said it would stop the bleeding, not heal the wound. Don't even try with the broken arm."

She pulled a face at how… _useless _it looked.

"Oh, wait, don't try at all if you don't think you can't _not _heal the arm… cause… it's not set and all."

She nodded, and he relaxed slightly. She could do it, however… she glanced nervously at his fragile form.

"It looks like it's about to break any second."

"I _had _better ones before…" he trailed off, and Aerith didn't need to hear the words to know the rest of the sentence. _Before Sector Seven_.

She sighed and plucked it out of his fingers quickly. Rolling around the materia in her palm, she tried to gain a feel for it. With slight disbelief she felt a very soft pulse accompany her heartbeat, meaning that yes, it worked, but no, it wasn't strong enough to produce the lulling, constant drone of warmth that most restorative materia gave off.

She didn't have any accessories on her to amplify the use of materia, as her bangles had been taken away upon the discovery that they were not just jewellery. So the archaic method it was.

Using materia without any help from accessories was a difficult task, something she found out when she tried to heal herself with a materia she got for her birthday – upon her request, of course. She rolled the materia around, warming it up with her own body heat, and then placed that hand, materia and all, against Zack's shoulder.

"This is probably going to hurt." The jerk deserved it, but she knew she was going to stop the moment he even so much as winced in pain. She could pretend to be heartless, at least in front of him.

"My arm is numb; go right ahead."

She breathed in deeply; shifting her body slightly and lifting herself higher so that more of her body would cover whatever light the materia gave off. Then, she _pulled _in the power that the materia had. It hurt. Muscles tensed as her arm threatened to spasm, but taking in pure magic without a conductor was dangerous as it was. She couldn't afford any movement during the transfer.

The effect might be beneficial, but the process certainly wasn't. She wasn't even going to try this method with a destructive materia. Something whose purpose was to harm would more than likely hurt more than any wound she had ever received.

Then, she _pushed_. The energy always came easily, and shoving it out of her arm and into his felt better than she thought it could. Probably because it hurt more than she was used to, most probably because the materia was defective to begin with.

The bright green glow illuminated the area, and she could only hope that no one was watching at the moment, because even a faulty materia was better than no materia at all.

Then, pulling her arm away, panting slightly, she looked up into Zack's eyes.

He was staring at her numbly, before an impressed smile grew on his face. "How _did you do that_?" he asked excitedly.

Aerith blinked, and lightly retracted her arm, materia enclosed in her palm. "I used my body as the conductor instead of an accessory."

Zack looked off to the side for a moment, most likely gauging the logic of her statement, before he nodded. "Wouldn't that hurt?"

"It does. I don't _like_ doing it." She wasn't a masochist. She had no plans on becoming one either.

"Thank you," he answered sincerely, and Aerith merely nodded in response. She started to gnaw on her lip again, before clamping her mouth shut so that the temptation didn't arise. Instead, her hand went behind her back and pulled her braid to her front, before playing with it.

"We're just supposed to wait, right?"

"If worst comes to worst we could just slam ourselves into the wall and hope it breaks."

"It's concrete." She would not admit to trying that. Never. The camera was her only witness and that would be that.

Zack grimaced. "Way to crush a guy's dream."

"Of escape?" she frowned before shrugging; _I suppose it's a good enough dream_.

"Of _freedom_," he corrected. "People undervalue the cost of freedom too much."

Once again, Aerith didn't know what to say. She knew it probably had to do with the plate, his words, but...what _could_ she say?

She didn't know where to begin, and even worse, she knew she wouldn't know when to stop. That was the real issue; knowing at what point getting any closer would only result in more pain.

* * *

><p>Watching Cloud try and fiddle with a hulk of machinery that took up the expanse of the wall in the small room the three were currently crowded inside was rather fascinating.<p>

No, Tifa, stop it. Aerith needed her help and Zack was in trouble. There was _no_ time to be hyper aware of stupid things.

She took in a deep breath, and then let it out heavily. Cloud paused his hands as they hovered over numerous switches and keys, and glanced over at her with a quizzical expression. She quickly shook her head, shoving a smile on her face. _Now is not the time_.

_What happened to you_?

The words were burning on the tip of her tongue. She refused to say them, refused to utter the questions that seared inside her. They tore at her insides and ravaged her soul. She wanted to know, but knew that whatever was happening with Cloud, now was _not _the time for it.

_What happened after the Nibelheim massacre?_

Cloud reached up and turned a small silver key from its side to straight up, before crouching down in front of the small screen that gave the instructions for the manual override. There was a book somewhere, Cloud had said, though it had either been stolen or lost amongst miles of paper work in the 'Back-Log' (as he called it) department.

_How did you go from being an infantryman to a SOLDIER 1__st__?_

She fidgeted, and then placed a patient smile on her face when Cloud looked over. Barrett was grumbling in the corner, however Tifa had a feeling that he was thinking about it. _Again_. The plate falling. She herself couldn't stop thinking about it. Every time she looked at Barrett, she thought about it.

Every time she looked at Cloud, she thought about home – what happened, the questions.

It was all beyond infuriating. Guilt lay everywhere, scars and masks and wounds that never really healed were cut right back open or shoved right in her face. It was depressing, and she was sinking. _Stop it_, Tifa warned herself, _self pity is only a distraction._ It was useless, she was confident in herself, so instead of moping about what happened – _stop if from happening again_.

Take down Shinra.

Take down the guilt.

That made her even guiltier. She mentally cursed at her frailty. She needed to be strong, mind and body. If she allowed herself to be caught up in the past, then everyone who had died would be shamed. She couldn't do that to them. She needed to move forward. _Live for those that were still alive_. Protect them, make sure they were safe.

She couldn't do anything about the dead. Couldn't do anything about her father, or the mother she could barely remember.

Get Aerith, save Zack, get out. Maybe destroy Shinra if it was feasible – at least give that rotten president a good beating before leaving. Protect, protect, protect.

_I don't seem all that good at it, do I?_

Shut up, Tifa.

Cloud began to tap his fingers against his thigh, as he reached down to flick a small red switch up, and then over to his left to turn another key.

The screen lit up in a bright green acceptance as the override was completed, and Cloud leaned back and groaned.

"Let's get going, then." He worked his neck, rubbing it lightly. She sympathized with him; that screen was too low to the ground to look at comfortably and still reach the keys that were nearly out of his reach.

"Finally!" Barrett huffed, and Cloud, who seemed to be more shaken by the entire infiltration than both Barrett and her combined, was probably going to snap again – verbally.

"You do it next time." Or not, though the words still had that scathing undertone, which gave her a hunch that the two would be friends as enemies only. That was fine though; comradeship existed, and regardless if the two of them argued, she knew Cloud would be doing the same thing to…

No. He wouldn't treat Zack the same way as Barrett. Yes, Cloud would be just as high-strung, but she couldn't see him… _snapping _at Zack. She shook her head as Barrett exited into the hallway, followed by herself.

Zack was… special. She didn't know how, but she had caught it a few times.

_You need to stop looking at Cloud so often, Tifa_.

She blushed lightly, and when she realized that she had done so, she slapped her cheeks. The movement was purposefully light, so it looked like she was just psyching herself up rather than to hide any unexplained colour.

_How Cloud used to look… before he left…_

Those expressions… he only showed them to Zack.

Not to her.

She would understand it if he showed them to Barrett… but to _Zack_. She didn't want to feel jealous, but she did. She just did. Perhaps it was Zack's personality, perhaps it was the air around him; it was like, regardless of the fact that he would possibly _never_ be able to beat Cloud…

Zack still acted like a leader.

It was the most peculiar thing.

"Come on," Cloud nodded down the hallway, and lead them on.

"What's ahead?" she asked, more for Barrett than herself. She would follow Cloud anywhere, she had admitted that to herself when she first heard of him again as the new SOLDIER 1st on television. The questions were her fuel… and l-

No. She didn't. Not yet. Cloud wasn't Cloud at the moment. But that was the problem, wasn't it? She, after all this time, had to figure out she was in love with the _old_ Cloud. This new one was fine… but she couldn't stop looking at him to try to find the sweet boy who stole her heart without her even realizing it.

_You're jealous of Zack because he brings out the person you love._

_You're jealous of Aerith because she has Cloud's attention and accepts him for who he is_.

_You're a horrible person_.

She sighed. _Stop it_.

Cloud was silent for a moment. "A stairwell."

"Hell no!" Barrett exclaimed, shaking his head and arms in complete refusal. "I ain't climbin' no more stairs, yo!" He stopped, standing firm.

Tifa discretely rolled her eyes but stopped and waited herself.

"The elevators are monitored. The stairwells run on a closed loop but no one watches those _because _of how ridiculously long the stairs take." Cloud halted, and turned, so that he faced the two of them.

"Barrett," she tried, as he seemed to have a soft spot for girls, "Cloud's right." How many times had she said that already? It seemed like it was turning into a catchphrase. _You know you're going to be terrified when Cloud ends up wrong_. "Zack has probably been caught by now and you know Shinra, they-" She didn't want to say it. She broke off and let Barrett fill it in himself. His shoulders relaxed and he huffed, before nodding.

Cloud turned, and continued, his pace twice as fast as it was before. Tifa felt an odd twist in her gut.

_Cloud… if I were the one captured, would you walk or run to me?_

Stupid question Tifa.

* * *

><p>Zack had started to blink rapidly. At first she thought it strange, before remembering his 'temporary blindness' as she had assumed it was.<p>

"What happened?" she asked. The two were sitting across from each other, and it took only a moment before realizing that she possibly only had ten or so minutes left with him before the guards would take him away.

Zack paused before tilting his head down. "I think Shinra was trying to imitate the sun, actually."

Why did he do that? He turned every question into a conversation. Well… she supposed it was a good skill to have, and it certainly made him easy to talk to. _But I don't have time_. She stood and sat down, Zack scooted over and let her have enough room between the corner of the wall and the bed.

He sighed. "They shoved me into a very bright room, and I was stuck in there for ten or so minutes. Happy?"

"Yes." She was pleased, but their time was almost up. "If they get caught, what do we do?" She had to ask, she really did, because after she sat down and thought about it, she just couldn't _wait_.

Zack grimaced as they thought about it, then, with his good right arm, he scratched the back of his head. "Uh… no idea?"

She lightly smacked him on his side, being careful to not touch any wounded area. With foresight, sitting on his left was probably a very silly idea. Well, too bad; she didn't feel like getting up. "What would you do if you found out you were stuck in here?"

He sighed heavily, before his eyes scanned the ceiling. "I would break the camera and start slamming the bed around. You know, make it sound violent. But… if they want me dead anyway they probably wouldn't care if it sounded like I was 'trying to kill myself'."

Aerith blinked in shock. _What_? "How… how did you come up with that?" _So quickly?_ That was the main part. Sure, she had the idea to wait until they came in and fed her, and then… well… fighting dirty here was certainly allowed.

"I think I saw it on a TV show once…" He shrugged with his good arm. "Can't remember the name. Oh, but before you get too excited, the person got caught halfway through the building."

Aerith pondered on this. "Well, they have to feed us-"

"They have orders to kill me if I'm not what I said I was. Which I'm not," his voice was carefully a murmur here, and she could barely pick up on what he was saying.

"Oh." That was a dilemma. "Well…" Well then what? What could she possibly say? "We should do it right now then!" She turned her head deceptively to the side. "I'm in here, right? Well… what if you were a 'danger' to me?"

"Are you that important?"

She nodded to the question, thought she really didn't have the time to tell him why.

"There are two guards that patrol the cell block; or at least, only two that talk. If we can get past them…" _Then what_? She wasn't used to having to plan out such complex escape plans – which would probably be due to her inexperience. Hiding and not getting caught was easier than breaking out after being incarcerated.

"The vents."

"What?"

He looked to the ceiling, their murmurs barely had their lips moving, so it would be more or less impossible for the camera to catch anything that they were saying. "The vents are held up pretty strongly due to the concrete structure of the building."

"Why would they have to do that?"

He laughed slightly. "Can't you let me sound all-knowledgeable for a little while? I have no idea why the vents are reinforced but they are… uh… I think they are. They should at the very least hold your weight."

"That's not very reassuring at _all_." She wasn't going to leave him and go alone. She had taken care to manuallyheal him. And they had their bet.

_And he was fun to talk with_.

"If it breaks, you should survive the fall."

"_What_?" she hissed, and pushed herself off of the wall. She paused, taking in his grim expression, before sighing and glancing at the camera. "Let's do it."

"I'd rather wait for the alarm."

"What alarm?" Did he know something she didn't? She pulled away from the wall so she could look at his bruising face.

"Well, eventually someone's going to see a large guy with a gun arm and one of their SOLDIER's right?" He left Tifa out – was she not a part of the party or did she just not stand out as much as the other two, so he didn't mention her?

"I suppose so."

He cursed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Man, this headache is killing me."

"I don't think your materia is good enough to stop a headache."

"It'd probably make a growth in my head, knowing how cheap it is." He stretched his neck and started to blink heavily again. "Finally," he breathed, in utter satisfaction.

"Finally what?"

"You say 'what' a lot," he pointed out.

She raised a brow. "You say weird things a lot." It sounded rude, once she said it, but she shook it off. He probably didn't know what was and wasn't polite.

"I'm talking to myself."

"That would be the first sign of insanity." She didn't know if it was or if it wasn't, but she felt like saying so anyway. _I'm getting better at this!_ She could respond without thinking, like he was doing. Of course, she supposed 'what' shouldn't count as a response.

"What was your first clue?" he asked sarcastically, but the way he said had her fighting a smile.

"You broke into Shinra without even knowing what I looked like," her tone turned dry. "Such a nice thing to do for such an ugly girl."

"You're not ugly."

Aerith's mouth snapped shut, and for some reason she felt her cheeks heat up. _It's only because Cloud hasn't said that you're pretty yet_. All he admitted was that she wasn't ugly, which really wasn't much.

She wasn't vain. She knew she wasn't, so why was such a… superficial sentence so pleasing to her? It made _no_ sense. "Not pretty?"

"I don't know yet," he admitted, and then he pulled a smile that looked painful to his swollen features. "There's still this large blue circle that covers nearly half your face."

"I'll have you know that it's shallow to only talk about someone's physical features." She needed to say that, because she was dying to point it out, "and you are hardly the looker. You actually look like a foot."

"At the moment."

"I'm sorry?"

"I only look like a foot at the moment," he paused, "and how exactly does a face _ever _look like a foot anyway?"

"I don't know," she answered stupidly. "You just do."

"Thanks."

"Thank you for saying that I'm not ugly."

"You have a massive nose, don't you?"

"You look like that normally, don't you?" she shot back, and then, started to laugh. What was with this conversation? It had nothing to do with their predicament at all, and she would have never been able to guess that she could be so carefree in such a pressing situation…

_He was doing it on purpose_. He was getting her to relax, to calm down…

His… mask… really was flawless.

"Thank you," she had to whisper it.

* * *

><p>The first four floors were simple to get by, the fifth was the problem, and their goal was the eighth. It was nerve-wracking, terrifying, but the adrenaline rush had become something that Tifa was used to and somewhat addicted to. It made every nerve tingle, every breath seem important.<p>

They were going to get caught.

"How exactly are we going to stop the SOLDIERs from coming once we make a break for it?" she asked Cloud, who, like the rest of them, was pressed against the wall, waiting for the guards to walk by.

"We can't," he said simply. "It was by pure luck that we haven't been discovered so far."

"What'dya mean?" Barrett huffed, as he had already run out of breath. "I thought you said that the stairs were safe."

"The hallway and the override room weren't." He always said things simply. Blunt, to the point; it wasn't anything like the old Cloud at all. That Cloud would try to explain everything in a way that would sound the best to the one hearing it.

_Stop it, stop it, stop it, Tifa! _She really did need to get a grip on herself.

"Well, why are we jus' pressing ourselves against the door, then?" Barrett asked.

Cloud sighed with a patience that seemed very fake. "This is the last door to the extra emergency stairwell that doesn't require a code. We'll need to go up using the main staircase. Which means," he sounded so tired, like explaining all of this was a chore. Well, it probably was. "That we're going to have to cross the hallway till we can enter the stairwell, and we're going to have to run up 'til the sixty-eighth floor. Those stairs are monitored, and once they realize that the doors are opening without keycard access, then Shinra will be on high alert."

"Why?" she asked. She didn't know why she did; perhaps it was for Barrett's sake, perhaps it was for her own, perhaps it was because she just wanted Cloud to keep explaining things, hoping he would fall back into old habits.

Cloud clenched his fists and shifted, in evident irritation. "The only persons who know of the keycard override are high ranking Shinra employees; meaning that there would have to be a rat."

"But it's you."

"They think I'm dead." He placed a hand on the doorknob. "So their immediate assumption would be that it's either Angeal or Genesis that's attacking their building."

"The old SOLDIER 1st's," Tifa hummed.

Without saying anything else – or perhaps because he had decided that he was done with talking – Cloud opened the door and quickly disappeared. Barrett swore and followed him, Tifa at his heels.

Walking onto the bright floor, Tifa would have to say she was genuinely shocked.

There was no one.

"What is this floor?" she asked. Other than some rooms with wide hallways and industrial grey paint – there was _nothing_.

Cloud paused for a moment. "It's probably the development floor…"

"Then why is there no one here?" Barrett walked ahead. "Is developin' really borin'?"

"There isn't much to do. Midgar would need an outer ring to expand," Cloud shrugged. "Though honestly, I've never bothered with this floor before."

"So we're just lucky?" Tifa asked, her brows raised in disbelief. "Okay, _something _is going to have to go wrong, it really is, otherwise there is just something _really_ messed up with all of this."

"The next floor has the board meetings," Cloud mused. "Most security is on the levels above."

Well… she spoke too soon, didn't she?

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thanks to all my reviewers! You guys are all lovely and I love you all to bits! And thanks a LOT to my beta, who pointed out some flaws in my writing that I will now make sure to correct. So, here's the new chapter! Read and Review please! (I'm about quarter way through the next chapter) I should have it written sometime next week, and then its back to my wonderful beta to edit so that it's nice and polished! _


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five_

* * *

><p>"Um," he knew precisely what she had thanked him for. He worked his mouth and attempted to spew a sentence out that would be as witty as his others. "You're welcome."<p>

That was it.

_And then it was awkward_. She almost felt like hitting herself, because acknowledging something that was meant to be anonymous completely took out the purpose of the intention. She had to stop herself from blurting out 'I'm sorry.' It would have made matters worse.

_Come on Aerith, _she began to tap her fingers against her thigh, _it's your turn to start up the conversation_.

"Um…" It was a decent attempt, but it was far from the best. "What's your last name?"

He gave her a 'look'. She didn't even understand why it was so effective, because his face was bruised and practically unidentifiable. She gave him an apologetic look in return, and only when he glanced meaningfully at the corner did she realize her mistake.

"Okay then, ever have a dog?"

"Nope."

"Oh… I haven't either..." she trailed off. In a flash, she stood, and pointed accusingly at him. "All I did was say 'thank you'!"

Zack. Laughed.

Of course he would. In a moment he broke off, and then crouched over in pain. He attempted to cradle both his stomach and his wounded arm.

"What now?" It was the first thing that was catapulted out of her mouth, which was the side thought to 'are you okay?' It didn't turn out correctly.

"Such love, I can't take it!" he hissed in pain, which gave the joke a bitter aftertaste.

"Is it your shoulder?"

He shook his head. "Would you believe me if I told you I have a hole in my side through and through?"

Aerith's hesitant hands fell limply at her sides. _Seriously?_

"How did you get here if you have an _impalement_ wound?"

"It's not like it's bleeding – I think." He slowly uncurled himself. "I started to notice it after they took me out of the… uh – I guess it was an interrogation room?"

"Why not before then?" She flung her arms out in what was supposed to be emphasis. She managed to hit his forehead with her knuckles. "Sorry!"

"Couldn't hurt me any more." He scratched as his forehead, where knuckle had met skull. "Well, you could, but… it'd take some real effort."

"Sorry." She brushed his hand away to look at the damage she had done. "There's not even a mark," she rolled her eyes. "Didn't know you were such a baby!" she teased, because talking light-heartedly with him gave the illusion that everything was going to be alright.

"Didn't know you were such a butch nurse."

She harrumphed in agreement, nodding exaggeratedly. "You bet I am."

"Tough love is the way to go!" he quietly chuckled, and Aerith smiled. Gingerly, she pushed away his limbs until his abdomen was unprotected.

"Want me to look at it?"

"As long as you don't decide to punch me as a form of 'rehabilitation' then go for it. But –" His sudden enthusiasm made her look up at him – he was weird. "You might like what you see. So there: you've been warned."

She continued to stare dumbly at him. Oh, she got it, certainly, but the way his face began to twitch was too funny to mess up with a response. Instead, she looked back down and tugged at the brown shirt until the ugly, red wound was visible to her.

She sucked in a breath through her teeth. "How could you _ignore _this?" she asked incredulously, because the half-healed wound was one thing, the fact that it had started to bleed again was another.

"Forgot about it; it didn't really hurt, just thought it would be best to get it bandaged."

"So…" Aerith glared at him, "the whole 'I'm in pain' thing was just an act?"

"No," Zack pulled a lip as he glanced over at his shoulder. "That was the shoulder. The hole in my side is a little souvenir from Seven. Pretty, isn't it?"

She couldn't find her voice, so instead she nodded her head. She vacillated between touching the wound or not, before she gingerly traced the frayed edges of skin.

"It's healed decently enough," she finally reported, and pulled away.

"I tried to close the wound."

"Right." She leaned over to where she had placed the first aid kit on the floor beside the bed. "You know," she wasn't certain if she should tell him, "that wound… it's not going to heal properly." That wasn't what she meant to say, but it was close enough that she didn't feel the need to elaborate.

"I know" he sighed. "I can't stretch without feeling it already." He laughed somewhat bitterly then. "Sorry if I won't be able to do a back-arch."

"I'm sure you will be able to… but…" She tilted her head and sucked her lips in as she thought of how to continue on. "As your 'butch' nurse, I order to not do any heavy lifting after today! The wound is not healed inside, and if you open it, then there is a possible adverse affect of incorrect healing."

"Did you just make that up?"

Aerith shrugged. "It made sense, didn't it?"

"A lot of things sound like they make sense, but in the end it's all a bunch of bull."

"Bull?" Oh. Never mind. Bullshit. "How are we going to break the camera?" she murmured, again careful to make certain that the camera wouldn't be able to pick up on any of their subterfuge.

Zack glanced around the room. "I'll throw the first aid kit at it."

Aerith looked down at the box at her sides. Oh! Right, bandages, bandages – she picked up another roll and held it up for Zack to see. He shifted until he wasn't leaning against the wall. She placed the end of the cloth two or so inches from the wound, and held it there with one hand before Zack's own came to hold it down for her.

"Thanks."

"It's my wound. I'm not such a vagrant that I don't know when to be grateful, you know."

"You know what vagrant means?" she asked, mockingly stunned as she rolled the bandage around his gut.

"Vagrant's a word?" he gasped in shock. "I should start to make up things more often."

Aerith giggled, and pulled the bandage tightly before repeating the process of rolling it around his body. The process put her a bit closer to Zack than she was comfortable with, but it was necessary.

"You smell nice."

"You smell like sweat." Again, heat rose to her cheeks at his compliment.

"I take it back. You smell like disinfectant."

Aerith paused in her work before rolling her eyes. "You're so _childish_."

"And the blood and sweat were to go and get you, so you're ungrateful."

Right, oh, right – she felt horrible then. "I, I said thank you."

"I know."

She finished unraveling the cloth and Zack's hand disappeared; his part no longer needed. Pinning the fabric together with her fingers she looked for another fastener.

"You owe me a cake though."

"Cake?" And then, deciding to play around, she shrugged. "I haven't really had that much practice with cakes, but I'll try my best – a blue one sound good?"

"Why blue?"

"Because of your _pretty_ eye colour." She fastened the bandage together so that it wouldn't fall, and then poked him in the thigh. "Have to commemorate it somehow, right?"

"If you make me a blue cake, then I will make a green one, and just warning: grass is a fair ingredient."

* * *

><p>Kunsel paced. Back, forth, back, forth – or was it back and forth? He was still missing his helmet, which was probably a factor of his unease, but honestly – how could he not worry?<p>

"This constitutes treason, Kunsel," he warned himself. He knew he disliked Shinra, knew it from the moment he made SOLDIER, that he disliked it. Knew he hated it when Genesis went rogue, knew he feared it when Strife took the place of the public head of SOLDIER.

The three greatest heroes and… gone: replaced and forgotten like they had never existed in the first place. He growled in aggravation. The building was going to be alerted soon enough; no one just waltzed into the main headquarters unnoticed. Even if it _was_ Colonel Strife leading the little rescue party.

A loud blaring pounded at his ears, and in a moment, he was standing, his hand reaching for a sword, only to grasp air. Oh, yeah. He wasn't SOLDIER at the moment.

Perhaps fate was kind after all.

* * *

><p>Tifa couldn't think. She never really was a thinker when it came to fighting. Everything had been pounded into her by instinct. If someone nearby lifts a gun to your head, you bat it to the side and enter their space, making it impossible for them to retreat. She lifted her knee and lodged it inside the soldiers gut, before bringing her elbow down on his back when he crumpled forward. Down. Next person, wait – go stop the man about to shoot Barrett in the back.<p>

She jumped high in the air to gain momentum, before crashing down onto the man before he could so much as take proper aim. He fell to the floor and in a smooth movement she took his rifle from him, flipped the barrel to the ceiling, and slammed the weapon near the man's neck. Precision wasn't a necessity at the moment.

"Tifa!" Cloud, she spun around and noticed him, however he wasn't looking at her, he was moving. Her gaze traveled along his line of sight, and she spotted the threat to her. In an instant she jumped to the side, using a column as protection before the hail of bullets came upon her.

Whatever luck she had been saving up, it seemed that she would have to use it now. A whooshing sound and the bullets ended – more than likely the person's life as well.

_No time to think, Tifa, remember that_. Hesitance would cause death, something that no one needed. People were counting on her! She pushed herself off of the wall and ran straight back into the flurry of fighting. She noticed Cloud from the corner of her eye, and to be perfectly honest she had admitted into her heart a tiny flutter of fear at both his brutality and efficiency. He cut people down, left, right, cleanly, easily - _like-_

_Do NOT finish that sentence, Tifa_.

Old memories needed to stay as old memories, especially when she needed to be in the here and now, not gallivanting in her painful past. She ducked under someone and their momentum sent them flying over her and crashing into the floor. She stepped harshly on the arm that held his weapon, making the dirty gloved fingers uncurl. She then tore the weapon away.

She was not weak.

She held the weapon steady, swallowed heavily, finger on the trigger…

She tossed it away with a sigh. Of course she couldn't, what ever made her think she could? _Weak, Tifa, weak. You blew up those reactors, didn't you? You _have_ killed people. If you think you haven't, then you're naïve._

The man had been sobbing, though.

Mercy is weakness. But it was a weakness _he_ did not have, so therefore she would. She would do anything to not be like him… She hated him.

_Cloud acts like him now_. Yes, he did.

A hand slid around her and roughly spun her around before her body was suddenly being sheltered and bullets were hitting metal and flying off. Her eyes widened as she suddenly realized that it was Cloud holding her, Cloud using his sword to shield the both of them from the threat, and _Cloud_ breathing irregularly in her ear.

She couldn't stop the blush rising in her cheeks, and just so that she wouldn't be self-centered, she sought out Barrett. He was fine, perhaps a little too trigger-happy, but safe, alive, and whole. Okay, now it was okay to be flustered.

"You need to pay attention Tifa!" Cloud growled wearily in her ear. "You could have died." Those words struck her the hardest, and just then, the bullets ended and Cloud was gone. She spun to watch him only to catch a glimpse of his sword cutting deeply into the marble flooring and the body falling in two pieces.

_You need to pay attention, he said_. She got up and rushed over to Barrett, as Cloud could hardly be designated as someone who required her help. She would just be a burden the way she was now. Once there, she gave Barrett a large smile she couldn't feel.

"Need some help?" she offered over the gunfire – all directed at Cloud at the moment.

Barrett grunted and nodded over to another column. "There's another bunch o'er there!"

Tifa nodded. "I'll drag them out, you get them, okay?" She didn't want to add, but had to, "try not to kill them?"

"That's what I've been doin'! Damn buggers keep trying though!"

So it was just Cloud who gave no mercy.

_Stop it, Tifa_. She couldn't hate him because she loved him, old him or not. Comparing Cloud to the man who took away everything that meant anything to her was not going to help matters.

Tifa forced her feet to move. She rushed at the column, and when she was able, latched a hand onto the corner and used the grip to pivot her run so that she quickly met with the Shinra soldiers.

They were still only soldiers.

What of the SOLDIERS? Wait, Tifa thought grimly, as she kicked one hard enough to send them flying backwards and elbowed another in the gut, that did not make all that much sense, did it?

It was then that she felt harsh metal bite into her right leg, once, she fell with a loud cry, twice, three times, last hitting her side. The bullet hail ended, and suddenly Cloud was there again. Blood was everywhere, hers, theirs, and she found she couldn't breathe. Was this shock? Strange…

"Cloud." Materia. Blood meant death, so much…. "I don't want to die." No, no, say something strong. Cloud quickly scanned her wounds, before holding his hand over the one on her stomach.

"I told you to pay attention!" he told her bitterly before he used the materia. The glow enveloped her gently, before a searing pain told her of the bullet forcing itself out. The glow ended, before Cloud started it again. "Barrett, we'll need cover over here!"

Barrett's voice was so dim behind the bullets and yelling. It sort of felt like there was cotton in her ears. "I'm not going to die, am I Cloud?"

"No," he said assuredly. "I wouldn't let you." He then laughed at his own joke, and it was then that she remembered her own words after Cloud returned from a reactor injured. He hadn't been scared of dying, his wounds had already partially healed, however… she thought he would.

_"I wouldn't let you die, even if you were in danger of dying, you got that, Cloud?"_

That was before Aerith came.

She hissed as she felt the metal slide out from her skin.

The warm glow died, before it started up again. "It needs practice anyhow." Cloud mentioned casually.

Tifa tried to smile at his attempt, but she wasn't sure if he could see it.

"How's Teef doin'?" Barrett. So he was there now.

"She'll be fine once we heal these wounds. Here, give me yours, it's more developed."

The glow died and she was left in her own bleary world for a moment. It felt cold.

She blinked, and the blurriness slowly faded from sight, and she squinted. Red. She saw red, Cloud's hair was stained with it, his face was splattered. So was Barrett.

_Was this the life I chose_?

She thought back to the times before everything started, to when Cloud was clumsy and adorable and so sweet. To the times she would write about him in her diary, along with dreams of their future and then squeal while rolling around on her bed as she blushed.

Her family, her home, her teacher – friends, life – _everything_. It was all gone, taken from her.

She did not pick this life, but she could not leave it either.

"Here, Tifa," Cloud said, before the glow started up again, warmer and softer. She sighed in relief. "Done." She tried to move. "Wait, I haven't done your leg yet."

Barrett began to shoot more, screaming loudly to increase his own bravado. Cloud healed the second shot bullet, and then Barrett stopped.

"I think we got all o' them," he reported gruffly.

Cloud moved to the last bullet. The glow began, but Tifa had to look away.

"So, how many more floors to go now?"

"We'll probably not get off of this one for awhile," Cloud sighed. "The SOLDIERS are probably being mobilized now."

"What about Zack?" Barrett huffed. "And Aerith?"

"We're the bigger threat at the moment, so… they will either hold off on killing Zack, or get it over with."

* * *

><p>East Block, Cell A: 19:52<p>

The young girl hovered around the door, dancing on her heels. The other occupant was still slouched over near the bed, heavily wounded. The girl began to ask him something, only for the other to ignore her.

The assistant leaned forward with a frown as he watched the screen blink. 19:53.

The black haired invalid rose to his feet, and then threw a grin to the camera that made the assistant's hand itch towards the phone beside him, practically dusty with disuse. What was the injured one planning? He squinted at the screen, watching as the guy walked up to the beautiful- _subject_. He shook his head. Then, with fluidity that only a monster could possess, the man wrapped one arm around her and held her in a chokehold before throwing her to the ground.

The assistant shot to his feet, staring at the camera with wide eyes, and before he could do anything, the black haired assailant reached over and grabbed the first aid kit. He threw it, and the camera died, a red pop-up box notifying the assistant that the line was dead. He stood stalk still for a moment, before clumsily reaching for the phone.

* * *

><p>"That didn't hurt, did it?" he asked as the camera in the corner teetered dangerously, hanging on multi-coloured wires. "I needed to make it look convincing."<p>

Aerith shifted and blinked to clear up her vision. "More _warning_ would have been nice!" she hissed before standing to her feet. "Now what?"

"Now you scream and help me beat up the bed."

"Uh… right. Got it." What a weird way to put it. "Help!" she tried to yell out, but being frightfully loud was not one of her strong suits. She walked over to the bed, where Zack had been giving her a dry look. "What?"

"Try harder." He pulled at the mattress with his useable hand and tugged it off. Then, leaning down so he could better grab the frame, he pulled. Nothing happened. Zack's face was almost comical as it turned purple from the effort and then backed away in confusion. "They bolted- okay. New plan."

"Help!" Aerith tried again, and Zack flicked her forehead.

"You stupid bitch!" he yelled, only he was loud and terrifying and raw. Aerith actually stepped back from him in fear. What had she done wrong? She started to stammer out an apology, and that was when Zack snorted – an actual snort too, it was rather uncouth.

When realization dawned on her, she nodded. So she needed to sound like that? She could do this. Just… well… screaming was a start. She opened her mouth, and forced the loudest scream she could possibly manage out of her lungs. Zack flinched and held his ears before giving her a thumb up. He walked closer and then grabbed her shoulders again, this time only rocking her back and forth so her screams had to break up.

"Help!" This time she added it into her 'do or die' scream. Her throat was going to be _so_ raw after this, she doubted she would be able to speak for a few days. Zack let go of her and she started to jump up and down to get the same effect. She could barely hear his laughter. She broke off, took another large breathe and screamed. Zack kicked the door, and it thundered.

It was quite the racket. She wasn't certain if it was a believable racket, but at the very least they would open the door to shut them up.

Then, just as Zack brought his foot up to the door, it opened. Only his momentum had him kicking it shut again, this time slamming it into someone's face. Her screams broke off instantly, and Zack looked down at the skinny looking guard on the ground before shrugging.

"Well, that works too." He leaned down and picked up the rifle the guard had in his possession, cocking it to make sure it was loaded. "Ready to go and climb some vents?"

She nodded, and followed him closely out of the room, and straight into a hallway with three more guards aimed and ready.

* * *

><p>AN: SOOO Sorry for the month plus time between this and the last update! I already have the next chapter completely written, so it should be up in about a week or so. Thanks once again to my wonderful beta, who edited this and gave me the best feedback I could ask for. Happy New Year everyone!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

* * *

><p>"Aphrodine," he drawled out, "where was that again?" He pressed the phone closer to his ear as he watched the eerie Shinra tower. Ironically enough it had become a beacon of light, doubtlessly deliberate in the corporate pawn's plans to personate the heroes, the light to the unknown dark. What a jejune game, but played so well.<p>

"Genesis." The voice on the other end was stern "This is no time to play around."

"_My friend, your desire is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess_." He shifted the phone to another ear, his eyes dropped from the building to the street corner. Clean, cleared, not a scrap of the common sight found in the sectors below.

"LOVELESS, Act III."

"Correct again." He stood up straight, his clothes bleak and unassuming. Solid darkness folded behind him and brushed into insubstantial shadows.

"Which storage room?"

"49B." The voice chuckled. "And Genesis?"

"What is it?"

"I can quote LOVELESS just as well as you can." The call ended, and after a moment, he pulled the phone away and snapped it shut. He shook his head lightly before once more glaring at the building in front of him.

He bent slightly, the mass behind him shifting in careless elegance, before he jumped, taking to the sky in a fluid motion. The cold was severe; it made his bones lock and falter. He wouldn't dare to break through a window in his condition, for the effects of the last dosage of the red liquid drug had been wearing off for days now. His hair was graying, his coordination was getting sloppy, and pain followed his every movement.

The parasite, grew, longer, larger, the feathers molted but still were plenty. He had considered cutting the disease out, cutting it down to the bone it rested and grew from, however his life was directly tied it.

The science behind the disgusting phenomenon was lost, and would be lost forever, for lack of discovery would be its status for years to come. Hollander had tried, Hojo had thrown the interest aside but in the end the appendage was his, and his alone. Angeal made an interesting note about it, and it would be the only note to ever exist. As his body weakened, the creature grew in size. An inane nightmare had it devour his being and weaken him until his skin was stretched over every ridge and joint of his skeleton, his eyes would sink gravely into his skull, and no longer would he be able to think of anything. An aimless, indomitable monster.

It was all proof of his monstrosity, though perhaps it was Angeal who was even more sickened by this. He had no reason to fear his, for degradation did not grace the perfect creation. The reminder, perhaps, was far too unwelcome, the white not clean enough to redeem his forsaken honour.

He landed on the rooftop with practiced ease. His legs caved slightly, the heavy swoosh was ignored. A large burst of pain along his left side sent him to cradle it tightly. He breathed in gasps of strangled air threw a throat that seemed to be swollen before slowly unfurling himself until once more he stood straight. He couldn't afford to be attacked, and truth be told, he should have come for the Aphrodine far sooner than he had.

Only the object of his intense desire had not previously been located in the Shinra Building. It had been located in the small town of Locfurth, not far from Costa del Sol. It was mostly a front, a small research lab in developments. During his first raid, he had come to discover the dusty remains of it being razed to the ground. Traces of Aphrodine smashed on the sandy white beaches, staining the diminutive grains with thick, poisonous liquid.

He had become addicted to it. The only consolation was that he required it to survive. His shaking hands and muscle spasms were common traits of the withdrawal. There was talk, according to Angeal, of the Aphrodine being suspended, as other than reversing degradation in the body it inhabits, it had no beneficial qualities. If Shinra did stop it, it would be to prevent the influx of an illegal drug spreading through Midgar like a clawing, rabid disease.

Only he needed it to stay alive. To remain as human as he physically could. If Shinra had ceased its production, then he would have to force its reinstatement.

He eyed the roof distastefully, before throwing it a careless smile and continuing on, intent on delving into the belly of the beast itself.

* * *

><p>"Zack," she couldn't help but call out as she unconsciously slid behind him. He had the weapon, she tried to rationalize, though deep down she couldn't help but feel like a coward. <em>Stupid, Aerith<em>! She chastised herself. If she were in front of him then his shot would be blocked. The only good of playing hero here was her dying… which wasn't a good thing.

She shook her head to rid herself of her muddled thoughts, only it didn't seem to work. Zack was holding a gun, the others were as well, and no one moved. Zack shifted in a moment, and then his sloppy stance mirrored their attackers.

"So that's how you do it," he muttered, but he was more than likely speaking to himself, so Aerith said nothing.

She needed materia to be useful.

"You know," Zack began, and everyone on the other side tensed visibly, "we didn't set off that alarm."

Aerith watched the others carefully. One remained immobile, the others hesitantly looked to each other. The guard in the back shuffled nervously on his feet, his head tilted over to the other corridor.

"That's irrelevant," the immobile guard said briskly. He was in the front. Go figure.

"This is supposed to be some important lab, right? On this floor," Zack started, and Aerith once more couldn't help but be awed at how easy it was for him to converse. He seemed to get what he wanted, didn't he? "I seriously doubt that someone would break in for something they could get somewhere else." His tone ended… strangely, but Aerith couldn't place it.

"Sir, you know what happened at Locfurth-"

"Shut it!" The more talkative guard ordered. "The Aphrodine has been discontinued-"

"Ah, right. _That_," Zack jumped in again. "If I wanted or… needed… that. Aphrodine. I don't think I would just leave Shinra alone because they discontinued it." Zack rolled his shoulders slightly, like it was an effort to release some tension. "Y'know, Shinra made it, right? Just because they stopped doesn't mean they don't know how.

"In the grand scheme of things, we really don't amount to much."

_Wrong, Zack. You don't amount to much. I do._ Aerith poked him in the side, and Zack snapped his mouth shut.

"Alright then. I'm probably going to hell anyway." In that moment, he grabbed onto Aerith and shoved her, where she hit the door and collided heavily with the floor. Pain bloomed along her arm, before she realized that she had fallen on it incorrectly.

The gunfire was loud. She blinked in shock and was about to rush out of the room to make sure that Zack was alright before he ran in as well. Then, the bombardment began.

"That… was you?" she huffed, trying to get the fact that the first gunfire was Zack, not the others. She felt like breathing in a sigh of relief, but Zack was wheezing or laughing. She couldn't tell.

"I'm _never_ doing that again!" he stated firmly, before dragging himself to his feet. "I," he gulped in air, and placed a hand on his chest, to feel his heartbeat. "I think I took down two."

_Killed them_. Aerith couldn't hear them in this building, could barely hear them in the slums, closest to the ground. They were dead, and it felt so detached from everything. Would their souls be able to find the Lifestream in a land where it was sucked up?

"There should be one left then." That was her saying it. How could she be so cold? She felt like crawling into the corner and hiding. But she couldn't – they… had made their choice. She couldn't be captured, couldn't live the nightmares she has had since she could remember.

Zack nodded. "We're going to need him." He nodded to the unconscious body on the floor. Aerith had forgone looking at him, in hopes she would stay focused. Zack handed her the rifle, which she took awkwardly.

"You killed them!" The pained scream brought tears to her eyes and she found she couldn't stomach holding the weapon that did it. She placed it gingerly on the floor. _That innocence is going to get you killed, Aerith, s_he tried to tell it to herself, but it wouldn't work. _My innocence is going to get me killed. And Zack. And Cloud, Tifa, Barrett. Marlene._ People will die, people always die. She just never expected to find herself in this situation.

She never expected to be thrust into a warzone with the global power.

Zack was stationary, and Aerith looked up at him. She couldn't see his expression, actually, he probably couldn't show that much expression with his face beat up the way it was. His eyes though… they looked… broken.

She wasn't the only one who was regretting it.

"It has to be done, right?" he asked her quietly, and she was suddenly faced with it. She could say no, and the man would come running in to avenge his fallen friends, and both she and Zack would die in his retribution. Or she could say yes… and live. Zack bent down and picked up the rifle, it took her a moment to realize it was in his wounded hand. His face froze in what she assumed was pain, but still, he picked up the weapon, put his finger on the trigger.

"Y-yes," she stuttered, her voice barely a whisper. She closed her eyes as tears leaked out, and in a moment, the door opened, flesh was shot and a heavy gurgling met her ears. The sound was so horrid; it took her a moment to place it, before bile rose to the back of her mouth. They were a man's dying breaths. She choked in a sob.

Zack fired his own weapon.

For agonizing moments, there was only silence. It was pressing; heavy, and Aerith knew then, that she would never be the same. She and Zack… were bound with the blood of others and their own guilt. She could have said nothing to his question, the result would have been the same…

But she had done it. She had condoned a man to death – two. All of them. Everyone. There had to be other ways. An arm grasped hers tightly, but she felt too numb to care. She had seen people die, but…Cloud had never killed in front of her. Cloud maimed, yes, disabled, yes, hurt, yes. But he had not killed.

He felt like a stranger to her now. Like a pretty fable that couldn't exist in the war-torn world she and Zack now inhabited. She followed the arm until she stood on her feet, and then, like he knew what she needed, he crushed her to his chest in an awkward hug.

She cried, and found she couldn't stop. Zack didn't seem to mind, because the one arm that held her shoulders slipped down to her waist and more or less dragged her out. She kept her eyes shut but even if she were to open them they would be blurry with the salty tears that now soaked Zack's shirt, along with her snot and mucus.

"It's alright, Aerith," he whispered along with soothing nothings. She hiccupped and sobbed, and thankfully no one else was in the hallways.

* * *

><p>Cloud stood leisurely, however it was a façade easily discovered if one were to look at his shoulders. He was nervous, she realized, and the impending sense of doom began to creep in on her too.<p>

"Cloud…" She didn't know what to add on to that. Perhaps 'I'm scared' would have worked, however she had a feeling that this Cloud wouldn't be able to do much for her.

"SOLDIER isn't what it used to be."

"Then what is it?" she frowned, the sound of heavy boots on the stairwell made her tense into a stance. "I thought they were superhuman."

"You'll be fine, Tifa," he said quietly. "Shinra doesn't have any monsters."

Tifa paused, and glanced over. The way the sentence was finished, or rather, it sounded like the sentence didn't finish at all. It was almost as if there was something else, something unsaid.

The elevator started, and she tensed, watching the numbers slowly descend. Lower and lower, and then the number finally reached 66, the floor they were on. Of course backup would arrive, locked behind doors not far away was a board meeting going on, or at least that was what she assumed from the large doors and heavy militia that didn't move from their posts. Even when they were attacking, go figure.

The number dropped to 65, and she released the breath she had been holding-

The door burst open, and the SOLDIERS poured in. Cloud tightened the grip on his weapon. "Tifa." He started again. "Go find Aerith."

"What?" Was he pushing her away? "Why?" Barrett had already opened fire, though most of his bullets were deflected, wide, or missed. Not one SOLDIER was hit.

"Barrett won't be able to get to them quickly."

She didn't have to ask why he couldn't; she didn't get a chance to either. He was gone in the next moment, and as Cloud ducked and weaved between swords in deadly ease while utilizing his own…

She was out of her league. Cloud knew that, wanted to protect her perhaps. However feeling weak was one of the most unpleasant positions that a person could be in. She could fight, but at the same time, each and every SOLDIER's reach outstretched her own. They were just as fast, if not faster… She wouldn't be of help, and Barrett _was _too large and heavy to get to their friends quickly.

She vowed to never be in this situation again, and retreated towards Floor 67.

* * *

><p>"We should probably find our stuff." Zack paused as he looked around in slight confusion. "There's no one else here?" It was worded like a question, but that was fine, because it deserved to be. The halls were deserted. Completely and utterly deserted.<p>

"What?" Aerith asked, her voice sounded so… tiny. For a moment Zack thought of letting go so he would be able to hear her, but when he lessened the pressure on her waist she clawed at his stomach. He lurched forward slightly as he mouthed 'Ow'. The girl had some long nails, that was for sure. He swallowed the pain and retort. She didn't really need that right now.

"I think Cloud and them are keeping everyone busy," he repeated, or clarified, it didn't really matter which because in the end game it all meant the same thing. "So we should get our stuff." Proper materia, would be lovely. Aerith didn't say anything, so he looked down at her. Her head was buried, and her shoulders were shaking.

She… was too pure for this situation.

_Wonderful_.

He sighed and let go, biting any noise that might arise from his throat when she scratched at his gut again. He placed hands on her shoulders and pushed her away. She shook her head violently and tried to pull herself back to him, but she needed to understand what was going on.

"Aerith?" he asked, realizing that he had never been good with crying girls. She didn't listen. "Aerith," he repeated, this time more forcefully. She paused and looked at him.

"I'm sorry." That was the best way to start these things, wasn't it? "I'm really, really sorry!" Perhaps it was the right thing, because this time when the tears began to creep along her waterline and spill over she blinked them away. He wasn't even sure what he was sorry about. Sorry for killing them? Sorry for dragging her in this mess? Sorry he couldn't rescue her properly?

"They're dead."

She whimpered, but nodded all the same. He held in the sigh of relief, and pushed away the dark little thought to the depths of his soul. _She's more broken about it than you are_, it said, _doesn't that make you a monster?_

No. Yes. Never mind, he didn't need to question his disturbing lack of remorse at the moment. Aerith walked slowly, holding herself like she was going to fall apart if she didn't. He sighed and jogged lightly to catch up with her.

"Do you know where they kept our equipment?" he asked, keeping his voice low. Aerith nodded meekly, and with a shaking hand pointed towards a door she was walking towards.

"They put my materia," she was so quiet, that Zack had to shove his face near her mouth, "in there."

Zack nodded, feeling distant, before quickly making his way to the door. A try with the doorknob and he found it locked. Well wasn't that just peachy? He was going to have to kick it down. Just great! Hopefully nothing healing opened up.

He raised his leg and then slammed his foot down on the door, near the lock. He crossed mental fingers that the door would just bust in, and thankfully with a loud crack and splinters, it did. He lowered his leg, feeling sore from the action but not particularly knowing why, he entered.

Long rows of filing cabinets met him, so much so that he needed to pause just to take it all in. "Hey, Aerith?" He called, "Do you know where, exactly?" He didn't want to push her, but they were running on a very short schedule. She was by his arm the next moment, her hand curled itself into the sleeve that was still whole.

"Shake them?" she suggested, her voice painfully light, like she was forcing herself.

"Best idea I've heard all day!" he exclaimed, and, gently shaking the arm that she held so that she would relinquish her hold, he held the corner of the filing cabinet, and shook it. There was no clinking sound, or, he imagined there should have been a clinking sound. He hadn't exactly been subjected to the oh so horrid luxury of having a lot of stored material lying around. "You take that side," he nodded to the one behind him.

She did as told, though once more only paper sounded, the soft sound of metal as well as folders scraped along the bars that held them up. The two of them moved, and while Zack couldn't say what was on Aerith's mind, he was mentally fuming.

Each and every cabinet produced the exact, same, sound. He was tempted to groan aloud, however didn't. Who knew what would send Aerith off. He had a customer who had just lost her husband once, and she had tried being lighthearted too – only he, of course, apparently took the mood too far and she snapped at him.

The old hag never came back.

Lesson learned, Zack. Give the ladies their space. Unless you don't care, in which case encroach on their precious little space all you want.

"Here," Aerith sounded. Actually, the noise itself was a sigh. She just… _breathed_ words into it. Zack had to double check to make sure she had actually said something at all. In the end, he shrugged, and turned around to face her… back.

"Open it up then," he urged when she didn't move. She jolted slightly and leaned down, opening the bottom drawer. There…was nothing. "Where is it? The thing made a noise, right?" He grabbed the cabinet's corner and shook it. Once more, a light clinking of what sounded like glass could be heard, only not seen. "Maybe the bottom is fake?" he suggested, incredibly confused as to why someone-

Aerith stuck her hands in, and, in a lithe movement, pulled out the thin sheet of metal. And there, in a small, tiny collection, were bright glowing orbs.

_Good quality materia._

Her head tilted. "This isn't mine."

"Is it good?" At the moment it didn't really matter all that much whose it was.

Aerith hesitantly picked it up, and turned it experimentally in her hand. "I don't know what it is." She frowned. "I don't think its materia."

"Then what else could it be?"

"I don't… know. We should keep it though, right?" She tapped the false metal bottom. "I'm guessing it's stolen, considering the fake bottom."

"Sure," he shrugged. "I'm going to check the back, see if my sword is there. You keep looking for your materia."

Aerith hummed in agreement, as she collected the three strange not-materia objects from the bottom of the cabinet.

Zack jogged to the back of the room, where there was a gap between the last cabinet and the wall, and surely enough, there was his sword. "One thing down." He grabbed it and twisted it experimentally with his right hand, thankful that he could still use it properly without his left as balance. "Are you missing anything other than materia?" he called out.

"My bracelets."

"Bracelets, bracelets." His eyes scanned the area and voila! There they were. Placed carelessly on top of the metal filing cabinet, were little circles. "I guess those are bracelets." He shrugged and slipped them over his fingers, waiting for them to fall down. They got to the knuckle of his thumb before they stopped. "Now I feel overweight," he complained lowly before opening the cupboard they were underneath.

There wasn't any materia, instead there looked to be personal items. Knives, materia, necklaces… feathers.

"Over here!" he called her over, and the shaking of cabinets stopped. In two moments – not one – she was next to him. "Take what you need." Or want, but he had a feeling that Aerith would consider that theft.

She nodded, however before she could reach for the materia, he poked her with the hand that had her bracelets.

"Oh, thank you," she mumbled before slipping the lot onto her wrists. "It's impressive how these materia," she picked one up, it glowed brighter in her hands, "simply melts into some metals, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I already have two materia in these." She shook her wrists. "As a back-up. Just in case!" She smiled, and he returned the gesture, though he couldn't exactly be sure it was a pretty sight. At least his teeth were white – enough.

"My rod," she leaned over to the gap where his sword had been found. "Oh, there it is!" She reached in, and came back with it.

Zack had to stare for a moment.

"You beat people with a stick?"

* * *

><p>He never liked the elevators in Shinra. They moved fast and stopped abruptly. They were glass and cramped and the music was a drone that had far too many staccato beats to be nulling. The bone in the upper ridge of the black mass of plumage was painfully drawn up like a marionette with strings. He couldn't move, he wouldn't be able to escape from the enclosed space with ease. It was maddening.<p>

Or perhaps it could be the fact that he had been stuck in one once – for five hours – as some eco-terrorist group went around and cut the supply lines from the reactors.

When the elevator stopped smoothly on Floor 63 he was somewhat impatient. It could be the simple fact that he was inside Shinra itself, and the bad memories associated with it – as well as the unrelenting reminder of what the company had done to him. His shoulder had begun to itch in the only manner that locked motion could create. His fingers, in order to release the pent up energy, had taken to flipping his thin phone into the air, ensuring to catch it between knuckles.

Catching the metal, he flipped it open and quickly called the only number listed in the directory as he stepped out and onto the cold and empty floor of high-security storage rooms.

"Ah, hello again."

"49B, you said." He paused near the door. "Am I supposed to guess?"

"I figured out the room." The other side retorted breathlessly. He sounded as if he were rushing. "It's called trial and error." Genesis paused in silent vexation before eyeing the security details.

"How reinforced are the doors?" He rotated his shoulder, disgusted by the pops and cracks that his bones made with the movement.

"Not enough."

A smirk danced on his lips. "Fair enough." He pressed the phone lightly to end the call as he readied his sword, before swiftly assailing the solid metal. The heat melted through, and one side fell off in a heavy heap. In immediate retaliation a red light blared. He snapped his phone shut, pocketed it, and walked through. 48C and 49A. Of course. He studied the direction of the hallway, before quickly slicing open the next block.

48A and 48B. Wasting no time he walked back into the previous hallway and cut through the only remaining blocked hallway, the metal, like the previous ones, crashed to the ground. He climbed through, finally spotting the block 49B. He paused for only a moment. "_My friend, your desire is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess_."

He cut through, and the door fell. He stepped in smoothly, his eyes roved the contents before finally landing on a secured cooling tank. He walked up to it, unlatched the hook and opened it. Mist bellowed out as the warm hit cold, and tiny jars filled with a deep red liquid met his eyes.

He touched one gingerly, and then took it out. He reached into his pocket and took out the syringe. With practiced ease he filled 1.0 cc of the Aprodine and tapped the needle. He relinquished his coat and then, finding a vein, he inserted the needle, pushed on the plunger, and immediate euphoria took over. He could feel his arm again, the warmth was invigorating.

He took the needle out and tossed it aside the sound clear and loud to his awakening ears, the glass smashing and the pieces scratching along the concrete floor. Then, carefully, he set the bottle of Aphrodine back into its cold prison, the sound and feel of the glass a mesmerizing concept to him, the colour more vivid and enchanting than he could remember. He slammed the top shut, laughing in ecstasy as he did so, in pure jubilee. He would need to take all of it, but the containers size made that complicated.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Okay, here's the next chapter! Please review everyone, it would be utterly fantastic if you did. In addition, I would also appreciate if you went and checked out my new blog, its www. darksentences .com. Obviously without the spaces!_ _Anyway, hope that my Genesis portrayal is decent. _Read,_ Enjoy, (and Review)! _


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

* * *

><p>Zack held a hand out, the moveable limb blocking her passage into the hall. She didn't particularly have an opinion on it, so she let it be. The cool metal clasped in her numb fingers felt slightly reassuring, as did the constant hum of the materia she had placed in the rod. The rest were in Zack's pockets, and they clinked together almost amusingly.<p>

"There's no one else here."

"Then the plan worked." She couldn't blink, she would see. She would see and hear and she couldn't have that. Not now, not when Zack watched her every move like he waited on her for direction, and especially not when he cast those dreadful looks of self-loathing whenever he thought she wasn't looking. Right now, whether she liked it or not, she was his rock. She was the reason he was doing this, she was his reason for everything at the moment.

It was a lot of pressure, but she couldn't disappoint him because of her own naivety. He had saved both of their lives, he had ensured he wouldn't be hit by using that… that poor man. Her only hope was that between unconsciousness and death, he had not felt much. The… last guard – he had lost his friends.

She imagined she would act a lot like he had if hers had been gunned down in front of her.

Zack removed his arm and then grabbed onto her shoulders, and even though she knew that the hand that touched her had killed someone else, she felt at ease in the touch. She followed him willingly, because he was the man who risked his life for someone like her, he was the one who got wounded, punished, and killed… all for her.

She felt the safest she had in such a long time – in the arms of practically a stranger. Their trekking was skittish, however they passed door after door, until someone rounded the corner. Zack immediately tensed and reached behind him for the weapon she had strapped to his back so that his hand wouldn't be filled with a gun.

She could have healed his other hand, however Zack insisted that they get to someplace safer before doing so. Perhaps he was a masochist; that would be an interesting development.

Before she could even get a look at their new adversary – whom she had promised to herself she would put promptly to sleep before Zack's contribution was needed – Zack let out a high-pitched sound. It was laughter, and for a moment she was profoundly worried.

"Zack?" she asked in confusion, before turning to look to who it was who had intruded on their escape route. "Tifa!" she blurted out in pure delight. Zack let go of his grip on her and she raced over.

Tifa, it was Tifa! The sight of the other girl, beaten but seemingly unharmed past a few bruises, made everything better. It was like she and Zack had been stuck in a dark place, locked away from the possibility of ever leaving, and now Tifa was there. Like she opened the door that was blinding but good and warm and it beckoned _freedom_.

Tifa's smile of relief was welcoming and when Aerith rushed in for a hug Tifa accepted it. Tears leaked unbidden from Aerith's eyes and she just couldn't stop it, regardless of how long she held her breath to hold back the sobs.

"You got out on your own, huh?" Tifa asked, however the question was directed over her head, and to Zack. There was an unusual silence, and it had Aerith worried; biting her lip, her sobs temporarily quieted.

"Yeah." He rubbed the back of his hair, before dropping his hand to the handle of his sword he had leaned against the wall during her reunion. "So, everything else going according to plan?" He didn't look up at the two of them, and instead mintuely rotated the leather grip of the weapon.

"Cloud and Barrett are downstairs," Tifa nodded. "I need to get you out of here."

Zack let out a soft laugh before picking up the sword, and it was then that she noticed it. His hand shook, his entire arm shook, actually. He then placed the sword back through its halter and shook the hand in two succinct movements.

He was exhausted.

Extracting herself from Tifa, she quietly walked over to him. Evidently she had been hanging around Cloud too often, if she could possibly expect Zack to still be fine and ready to go after everything. Suddenly it made sense as to why he didn't want his wounds properly healed either. The pain enforced the severity of the situation, and healing took the person's energy just as much as it took the caster's.

That was the reason for phoenix downs and ethers, to restore some energy for healing to work. She reached him and grabbed the unwounded hand, before turning to face Tifa, who eyed the exchange with an odd expression.

"We should go now, right?" she prompted, breaking Tifa out of her trance. The girl nodded, and Aerith had the sinking feeling that she too, was being pushed to her limits.

But Tifa would keep going, she was used to these sorts of situations. She glanced uneasily at Zack, who had gone oddly quiet once Tifa came – or rather, the prospect that he might actually get out of here alive-

She froze, missing a step and almost tripped over herself. The sick bile that wound itself around her throat made her feel weak and hampered. Zack had not expected to leave here alive.

He was expecting to die on this rescue mission.

That was why he suggested that she go in the air ducts before she rejected it. 'He was going to die', whether he consciously thought so or not didn't matter. He thought he had no hope of leaving this building. All for her, or rather, he didn't think he would have had the chance. Another reason he didn't want her to heal him – save your energy, Aerith. It will be more important later on.

Those words could have been his exact thoughts.

"Don't go tripping over your own feet," he joked, however she could now hear the weary undertone. He was so tired. "I mean, I know how distracting I am, but leave it for later." He was so… fragile. She looked at him with involuntary horror, an expression she assumed he tried to mock, because his beaten face seemed to… expand. She couldn't even manage a smile.

Instead, she nodded distractedly, and tugged him forward. She was going to get him out, whether he liked it or not. There was no way she was going to let him die, not when he was so willing to accept it.

Heavy footsteps alerted the group to approaching men from their right side. Tifa stared for a moment before quickly dashing to the other side, "there's too many for it to be them," she explained, and Aerith held onto Zack's hand as tightly as she possibly could, and pulled him along.

* * *

><p>Kunsel hesitantly hovered from his spot, waiting for the call to learn if he needed anything else. The phone was inside his pocket, which he tapped incessantly. He still had no helmet. He felt weak, exposed, and incredibly vulnerable. Naturally.<p>

"Pull it together, SOLDIER," he muttered to himself, even though if he were to be honest he was utterly terrified to meet the legendary Genesis, 1stClass SOLDIER in person.

Angeal was different, he was calm and not wont to cutting people to pieces when infuriated. Genesis' temper was made no secret during Angeal and his meetings six months ago, or rather his volatility. So far he seemed amiable enough, and theoretically he should be even more so after his degradation was reversed as per effects of the Aphrodine.

The man wouldn't be so calm when he learned that any file appertaining to even the slightest reference of the Aphrodine was under the highest confidentiality and thus – Kunsel didn't have an inkling on where they might be. He honestly doubted that they would get rid of something so… potent… or rather, he doubted that the President would get rid of it due to the millions spent in the development and research. Funny, the only real reference to it that he had was in the bills it cost.

"Cadet!"

_No_, Kunsel groaned as he heard the man call to him. He had plenty of things to say to his large, thick-headed platoon leader. The first would be that he wasn't a _cadet_. Though it had some merit, he supposed, because that was the rank he had been punched down into while they 'investigated' him.

Checking Shinra's banking statements evidently didn't leave you in the good graces of the company. However, he still _was_ – technically – a 2nd Class SOLDIER. The real question to be posed was whether the platoon leader was aware of the fact or not.

"Sir," h e responded, regardless. He had half a mind to blow the man off, as there were other more important complications going on (mainly being, Zack and co.). He just had to have the worst luck, however in the end the entire ordeal drew the attention off of him completely. The heads were too worried about their own necks, the scientists were too worried about preserving their precious subjects, and the guards were too worried about annihilating the terrorists.

Which meant that no one would be worrying about a confidential drug locked away in a storage room. It was brilliant, really, and he supposed Genesis had been thankful when he informed Angeal to tell Genesis that he could come through the roof rather than the complicated route he had designed earlier. So what if that was five hours down the drain of mapping and countless more marking down guards' patterns? At least now he wouldn't have to have a cardiac arrest every time someone so much as went to the bathroom out of schedule.

The man had been staring at him, he realized belatedly – the main reason that he was even able to drift off into his own thoughts like that. He quirked a brow at his 'superior' but the man remained still. Kunsel's eyes refocused, the blur disappearing, before shrugging the intense fatigue off from high stress and all-night planning and zeroed in on the blade sticking out of the man's chest.

Immediately Kunsel slipped into a familiar stance. However habit failed him, for when he reached for his weapon and found it missing, panic sprung within him. Gun, gun, eradicate the threat, then think about it. The body dropped, and he remained tense for a beat, before dropping out of his stance, wary, but open. "That wasn't necessary."

"I'm in a good mood," the murderer shrugged. _"My friend, the fates are cruel,there are no dreams, no honor remains. The arrow has left the bow of the goddess."_ He spun, the expression inhumane and twisted. Kunsel's tense limbs forced him back a step.

It was the wing, he swore. The black, ratted thing that Genesis dragged along behind him like it was a beaten and old toy. It was elegant, of course, there was no denying the liquid black nor how sleek the feathers looked. It was the position, it was the fact that it looked like Genesis was trying to stretch the thing out only the bone and feathers bent at odd angles when it came to the ceiling.

It was his first time seeing the black mesh of monstrosity that led the proud SOLDIER to insanity, hell, and then back unwanted. He couldn't stop looking at it, his gaze was drawn to it. Morbid fascination was a disgusting thing.

"Genesis," he felt the need to call his name, perhaps to drag the man down from his high and back into the realm they were all 'entreated' and then beaten into. "Is something wrong?" Perhaps there had been something wrong with the man from the time he killed his parents. Perhaps there had always been something wrong with him, perhaps the breaking point was the truth. He couldn't look away from the broken thing behind him.

"The container," he drawled lazily, too drunk off the Aphrodine and the lack of the accustomed pain to have a care in the world, "is bolted down."

"Then what did you do?" He coaxed the taller man, hands out in a soothing, non-threatening manner. He couldn't be an enemy in this situation, there was no way he was about to become a threat. He liked his neck… his limbs, his organs, his skin, his bones… he liked everything exactly the way it was.

Genesis' blade dripped with the fresh blood of the man bleeding out on the floor. "It won't fit into the elevator," he explained wistfully, and Kunsel had to note the effects the Aphrodine had on even someone who actually benefited from the effects.

He had heard about it, the effects, however the name had not been released yet. So to the SOLDIERs that took it in hopes it would fix the severe cases of mako poisoning it was known as AVO-IX. He had seen one of the recipients close-hand when he had been fixated at the hospital ward after losing a spar with a fellow SOLDIER.

The man had a high fever, severe and vivid delusions and threw up anything that he ate. He had become dehydrated and then the final step occurred during his stay. The delusions became nightmares, he supposed, for the man suffered from extreme paranoia, agoraphobia, and agonized through several panic attacks that resulted in two dead nurses, one critically injured doctor, and an overturned, broken bed.

He was shot.

Kunsel had done it. He would have done it sooner, however finding a weapon in a place where healing was supposed to occur had been harder to do than to say. He had to leave the ward in search of it, hoping he would meet someone – _anyone_ – on the way over. He didn't – it was after Angeal and Genesis' desertion, after all.

He was briefed that the AVO-IX drug was a failure, that in the initial testing on animals it had improved their physical state, not… _that_. However alarms flared in his head when AVO-IX suddenly disappeared from nearly everyone's knowledge.

He would later learn from a rat inside Shinra what they renamed it: Aphrodine. The man told him after careful prodding and several drinks at the bar. Apparently Shinra wanted to keep it fixed, hold the stash, because while it caused… what Kunsel had witnessed… with 4 cc, at 1 cc it gave the user the best high of their life. An intake of more than 1 cc of Aphrodine within ninety-six hours was considered overdose.

It was a hell to get off. Two intakes, the user was hooked, and regardless of the time in-between injections the result was always the same – the deterioration of the mind. The man told him that he could get rich off of it, told him he found that all out because people were always desperate to forget themselves, to loose themselves to a place where they could be happy. Even once the side-effects came out, the demands wouldn't lessen.

People couldn't handle pain, he had said, that was why Aphrodine was such an effective drug.

Shinra, of course, had a new-found interest in it. The reasoning was simple, Kunsel had been informed, for torture. Aphrodine was something that one couldn't _stop_ using. Which was almost ironic because Genesis was probably the only person who would be able to stop, but would die regardless.

According to the informant, prolonged time without intake of the Aphrodine wore away at the body in an effect very similar to leprosy. Their body degraded on them.

Genesis' body was already degrading, that was the reason that the drug worked. Users of Aphrodine had to continue using it because their bodies would deteriorate otherwise, the same went for Genesis, only in the end game there were far more benefits for him than for others.

Angeal hadn't told him what happened to Genesis after he got off of his high, nor had he said anything about long-term effects that the 1st had experienced, so Kunsel was more or less in the dark about anything else that the Aphrodine might do. However all he needed to know was that Genesis was different, the drug reacted to him differently, and thus he had to be treated with the utmost care.

Genesis had sunk into a window, leaning against it and sighing happily. "I think," he began, though he never finished. He began to mutter LOVELESS under his breath, and Kunsel, careful and very, very quiet, approached him. The battered creature was straining against the awkward corner it was forced to be in, however Genesis appeared to not care. Perhaps he didn't feel it. It was more likely that the horrible treatment was seen as a punishment of sorts. It sagged, winced, and looked alive. Looked like some demon calling for blood and death for its own pitiful revenge. "It kills me." Genesis' voice shocked him. "I don't care for it."

He said nothing and gripped Genesis' elbow and lightly dragged him along the hallway, stepping over the body of the man and taking care not to imprint his foot into the mass of blood. A trail that obvious would be a sad testimony to his skills, after all. Genesis happily complied, his wing, or his murderer, apparently, knocked against every surface it was thrown at and just as they reached the elevator, he froze. His body locked up and in the next moment Kunsel was thrown against a wall and the sword's tip was dangerously close to his nose.

"I want to talk to Angeal," Genesis slurred, however his eyes were sharper and more deadly than Kunsel had ever seen. Perhaps that was the sad thing about wearing a helmet all the time – he could get away with not looking people in the eye. He had a feeling that Angeal's were similar, had a feeling Sephiroth's were harsher, and had a feeling that Strife's were broken.

He couldn't stand looking a person in the eye. He was tempted to look away now, however the blade dropped inches and now hovered just above his Adams apple.

"Okay!" Kunsel breathed, scared to swallow against the _incredibly sharp_ blade. Bleeding wasn't the problem, nor was the pain; he just had a feeling Genesis was very volatile at the sight of blood.

No, wait, he was – he had read it in a report. Fuck. His hands shook slightly, though that was out of the fact he had no weapon to hold onto, and pulled out his phone.

"It's the first number," he whispered. Genesis stared at him for a moment more, before his head tilted to the side in a tick and his gaze slid to his hand. The blade was gone, as was the phone, and Kunsel took in the breath to exchange the one he had been holding.

The phone slid open. The instructions were on Kunsel's tongue however Genesis' thumb slid it upwards and artificial light illuminated his face. He frowned at the phone, and during Genesis' interactions with the technology Kunsel noticed how his blade was being leaned into heavily, the tip now dug inches into the carpet.

He wouldn't say anything. After all, what could be said that wouldn't infuriate, set off, or antagonize the legendary 1st in any way? Genesis wanted to talk to Angeal, so talk he would.

A button was pressed, and Genesis held the phone to his ear, waiting, before the phone was answered. And then hung up. Genesis tsked before throwing the phone with enough velocity that it shook the windows and fell, battery ejecting and screen cracking. Kunsel stared in disdain before he moved to its location and picked it up.

Genesis was staring at him, bored, however if he were bored then there would be no reason for the blank look. Kunsel made a show of taking the SIM card out, as well as the memory card, and then crushing them both within his fingers. Then, regrettably – as the phone had been a gift from his last girlfriend – he dropped it to the ground and stepped on it heavily and repeatedly until there was nothing left but useless bits of metal, plastic, and computer components meshed with the grey carpet.

"Angeal," Genesis began as he lazily pressed the elevator button next to him, "won't talk to me." He sounded upset, however the grin on his face was of pure excitement. It was beginning to wear Kunsel out, especially with the irritating fact that regardless of whether he had a weapon or not, Genesis would be able to kill him without much of a fight.

"I'm sure it was just bad connection?" He stayed where he was; an elevator ride to the floor with the container of Aphrodine… sounded suicidal.

"His honour refutes the existence of the drug."

_Oh_, Kunsel thought. He looked to his feet awkwardly, a habit that had never before been able to give him answers. Looking to the sky wouldn't either, so he supposed he would just stick with scuffed boots.

_I'm sure he only ignores you because you sound incredibly homicidal, and volatile, and you might also be suffering from a personality split, but who knows. A psychiatrist would be terrified of you right now, but if Angeal is the same person who I heard he was, he would just be tired of treating you the way you need to be treated._

He would take those thoughts to the grave.

The elevator door opened, and Genesis walked inside, the wing held him for a moment. Kunsel held his breath, dreading the sickening pops that would soon echo through the silent hallway were the 1st Class to simply try to rip his wing through the elevator doors.

The creature bent, long and soft feathers swept the floor in a regal bow before the entire being entered the domain of the small box that was to take them up. Hesitantly, Kunsel followed, giving extra care to not step on any of the long feathers that were pushed against the floor even as the bone strained against the roof.

The doors closed.

* * *

><p>Tifa didn't know what to do. She pushed the two ahead of her, fully aware that she was the most combat ready at the moment. She and Aerith at least, however Aerith seemed to have a death grip on Zack's arm as she forcefully tugged him to match her pace.<p>

"I'll need that arm," he whined tiredly, "my other's out of commission."

"Your feet can still work!" She sounded so desperate, looking back only to throw a heated glare at the man. Tifa frowned, not comprehending the relationship the two had seemed to form within the last hour or so. It could have been less, however she wasn't aware of when Zack exactly met up with Aerith. "Tifa, make sure he gets," she gestured wildly to the direction they were headed. "I'll need only a minute."

Tifa tensed immediately, however she nodded and changed places with the older girl, hesitating whether or not she should – or was allowed – to grab Zack's hand. He retracted and curled his fingers into a fist. Tifa nodded to herself, feeling awkward, before waving her hand in a 'come on' motion before the two ran off.

Zack fell behind, pausing.

"Zack!" she called, gaining his attention – shit, he looked utterly horrible from the handsome person he had before. "She can handle herself, but you'll just-" she cut herself off. He didn't need that sentence finished, not when he had already done so much, not when the two of them escaped from wherever they had been kept. "She'll hold them off better than either of us can."

"I guess," he started, "I wanted to watch."

Tifa blinked. What? "What? Why? We need-"

"If Aerith doesn't hold them off," he began patiently, just like when he was in the church with them, "then we'll need to be here anyway."

Tifa opened her mouth to protest before clinking it shut. He was right. She needed to think things through more, which was horribly ironic because Zack didn't give off the vibe of 'thoughtful planner'. She turned her attention to Aerith, noting how Zack tensed horribly when the group of SOLDIERs approached Aerith, whose staff had glowed a bright, eerie shade.

With a flick of her wrist her rod was swung, the light leaving the metal and heading directly at the group. The light hit the cavalry, who had used their standard weapons to shield themselves, before the spell erupted upon contact. The ice froze the hallway in a large spectacle, and even as the SOLDIERs began to crack themselves free with curses, Aerith prepared another spell.

Tifa bounced on her heel before rushing at the group. They were all partially stuck to the ice still, a result of an overblown novice materia. She could attack without too much worry about being stabbed, at least, if she could dodge fast enough. She ducked under the first SOLDIER's swing and using a fist she hit his wrist so that the blade swung downward and landed heavily in the ice. With her other arm she thrust her hand out and-

No, not his windpipe.

She smashed the heel of her palm into his jaw, having no time to change the position into a fist. Next hand, right hook and he fell slightly. _Come on, Aerith_. She leaped backwards out of the reach of the next closest SOLDIER, and glanced quickly over to her friend. Aerith's rod glowed once more with an overcompensated spell, and she nodded and took off.

As soon as she passed the flower girl's form, Aerith once more swung the rod and the light gathered at the tip and left. The light dispersed once it hit the desired target, and a flash of light exploded outwards as the spell's effect was unleashed.

Aerith leaned heavily on her rod, her breathing laboured. "I can't wait," she heaved, "for my materia to evolve."

Tifa nodded in agreement, before breathing out sharply and shaking her head to bring back her focus. In the hallway, six knocked out SOLDIERs were slumped awkwardly in ice, one with his foot still stuck, three more completely free, and the last two still had a leg with ice crawling up along it.

"Come on," she tapped Aerith's shoulder, knowing that the overpowered spells had pushed her to her limits. She'd have to ask Aerith how overpowering a spell worked later, or why it was possible in the first place, but now was not the time.

"Zack," Aerith grabbed for his hand again, Zack lethargically allowing her. Tifa frowned at the contact, however from the awkward limp that Zack was giving, she didn't question it. She owed him her friend.

Tifa followed after them, and when they walked - they froze. The sight before them was as monstrous as if it was a nightmare. Zack had paused at it, and perhaps that was the only reason that she had seen it too. The glow and then the sickly skin that was wrapped with ivy-like veins that twisted along the body where boils met flesh. It looked like it had once been a person-

There was heavy scratching, the noise became insistent and took her attention away from the monster inside. There, thin and underfed, was a large, exotic looking creature. Her eyebrows dipped into confusion for a moment, before the actions of the creature brought her attention.

They didn't have time for this. "It wants to be let out," Zack frowned.

"So?" They didn't have time for this: an elevator was only good as an escape route if they could get on without people attacking them on the way in. Or when they tried to get out. It was a possibility that there might be a helicopter on the roof, however they couldn't take those chances.

"Let it out," Aerith suggested. "It doesn't… nothing should ever be in Hojo's clutches."

"Hey, now." Zack chuckled hoarsely, "if you want to let the… dog… uh… sure. Out. Do it. I'm just," he worded around a yawn. "Too tired, I think."

Aerith frowned and Tifa mirrored the action. She sighed then, knowing the girl was contemplating the time they had left before someone _else_ arrived.

"Zack," Tifa called hesitantly, "could you?" Probably not, and the odd mesh of flesh that he morphed his face into could have been a blank stare, however it was too hard to tell.

"Sure," he cursed under his breath. Aerith, being closer, must have heard the exact words because she turned to him sharply with a worried look. He reached up and tugged on a strand of her hair, to which she yelped.

Zack's gait belied his pain, however when he reached for the sword, unsheathed it, and held it for a moment, that was when she noticed. His arm. _His entire left arm _didn't move. His right shook, however his left hung uselessly at his side, the grimace of pain a testimony to the suffering that the action caused him.

Zack, in a clumsy manner without stance, style, or experience, lifted the blade up and brought it down as hard as he could. The sword gave way, and then with the extra force from the spring, the thick glass cracked.

"Again?" she could hear him whine, before he did. The dog backed up to the corner of the tank. "There must be an easier way to do this." He brought the sword down again, however there was only another hairline fracture to join the previous.

"Zack," Aerith called, skipping over to him in an anxious fast-walk. Zack held a hand out, and paused while he looked at the locking mechanism over the tank.

"How do you think it gets air?" he asked, however no one had time to answer him when they heard heavy footsteps. Each and every member of their little group tensed and Tifa spun, settling into a familiar stance and waiting on baited breath for the enemy to show themselves.

"Damn Shinra!" The bellow came before the shape did. Tifa let out a wheezing sigh of relief as Barrett came to view, scowling and cursing. "You would think that they would care more for their own, but of course not!" Cloud filed in behind him, silent, calm, and most certainly without any sweat. Barrett was drenched, however he had constantly complained about how his gun arm was going to get larger than the other due to the sheer weight the weapon had.

"Cloud!" she called, and it dragged both of the men's attention over. Barrett's brows raised before he grinned at them, and ran over, too high off of the adrenaline rush to stand to walk. Cloud glanced back at the hallway he came from before walking towards them.

"Hi Cloud," Aerith smiled at him, and Cloud's gaze fell from hers to the flower girl's. The bitter hatred flared within her before she could even attempt to squash it. What right did she have? She couldn't dictate who Cloud spent his interests on, and she didn't care. She didn't deserve to care. She kept trying to find the old Cloud, the boy who promised her, the boy who had a crush on _her_.

He seemed to have disappeared.

"You're okay?" he asked, taking extra care to check for any visible wounds. Aerith nodded.

"Yeah," she glanced back at Zack, "Thanks Cloud."

Of course she would notice. Of course the small tick of the brow that Cloud displayed when Aerith looked back at Zack would be as clear to day as her. Zack seemed to be more or less out of it now, the two swings of his sword and he was utterly spent. She couldn't blame him, even though the stray, traitorous thought kept making its way in.

_He's so weak that he can't even stand a simple rescue mission. Look at the rest of them, some a little worse for wear but not dead on their feet_.

_So what if Zack wasn't used to this, he agreed, he should have been ready to face the consequences_.

Stop it Tifa. If you're jealous because of Aerith, then fine, however being jealous of Zack made no sense. It was logical why she couldn't be the decoy; it was logical why Aerith suddenly seemed to fit better with their new member than any of the others. It might not be completely logical as to why Cloud acted like his old self around him, however she had been theorizing that it could have something to do with Zack's attitude. No, not just that. The way he based his personality, the sunny, boisterous front he had (the sarcastic version, surely) – in a way, it was very reminiscent of Mrs. Strife. It made sense that Cloud would revert when a presence similar to his beloved mother came around.

She didn't know, she didn't even know if her hypothesis made sense. She _did_ know that Zack was a bitter person, angry and hateful underneath all of the cheer. She had seen it in the few moments he actually allowed her to lock eyes. The dark, hollow, icy tone was sickening, like he blamed everything that ever went wrong on them. Like they were the atrocious people.

And then everyone goes and treats him like they do Aerith. Barrett immediately took him in the group, treating him like no other – why was he so different? Cloud had gone through severe scrutiny; Tifa had gone through his phase of 'girls should be protected' and Aerith… Aerith was the exception because he had never met her. But _Zack_?

After the first time they spoke, he seemed to have been suddenly accepted. He found his spot and Barrett knew where he belonged. The stupid kid who had sass, she supposed, because Barret's exasperated shouts had started to drift away from Shinra to how that stupid kid better not have made a move on the girl who was the reason they were working their asses off.

He was joking, like Zack was an old friend.

_Why didn't everyone else get the treatment she had? Why was she the only one who felt the need to watch her actions and thoughts? _Why was it so much easier for Zack to fit into a group she didn't feel she belonged in yet? Did it have something to do with her 'perceptiveness' as her Master had often told her? The pain of noticing how others acted instead of being in blissful ignorance of it all?

Cloud raised his sword, and Tifa blinked in shock, realizing she had completely zoned out of the world in her own bitter antagonistic thoughts. Immediately she felt sick, however the irony of it all was the one thought._Why did no one try to drag me out of it?_ They obviously had a conversation-

Cloud's blade broke right through the glass where Zack's had failed.

"Hey," the failure in question protested, "I can do that too, I just need some food. And sleep!" He cackled for a moment while the rest looked at him before he shook his head. "Fuck. Sorry." His sword was already sheathed, and with the only hand that would work he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You probably have a concussion." Cloud suggested-

"Not to be a bother," a new voice began, making their entire posse jump in shock – or jolt. Aerith jumped, Zack jerked so violently he nearly fell, Cloud flinched and Barrett immediately raised his gun. The goosebumps on her arm caused her to shiver. "Apparently, I already have." The soft growl was uniquely animalistic, which made… sense?

"Is it actually talking?" Zack was the first to speak. "Because if its not then something might really be wrong."

"No," Aerith assured him, dazed. "Um, hello?" She leaned down towards the red feline creature. Strange, how it looked like a dog so obviously before in the curved glass but now, while its body still resembled that of a canine, all of the features were distinctly feline. "Who would you be?"

"Greetings," the thing said before pausing, "the scientist named me Red XIII." He walked forward slightly. "You may call me anything you wish," it added as an afterthought.

Cloud stared, silent and frozen, and she cursed herself for noticing him – _again_. "We should get going." He made no mention of who was invited or not, and Tifa supposed that was the point. Aerith immediately started for the small personal elevator not far off before Cloud reached out and grabbed her shoulder. She turned and looked at him expectantly, her face turning slightly rosy. "It would be easier to go the way we came."

"What?" Barrett immediately jumped in. "What about the SOLDIERs, huh?"

"There was mass desertion at SOLDIER years ago," Cloud explained, his eyes never leaving Aerith's. Tifa's hands clenched hard into fists. Stop it, stop it, and calm down. You are a good person. Aerith is a friend, you are needed, now really isn't a good time to be going through a self-worth crisis! She shook herself and stared at Cloud intently. "At most the SOLDIER's levels would be at 2nd Class, maybe one or two 1st's however in the end it's generally best to go down in a skyscraper."

Zack laughed, before he began to cough violently. "What the fuck?" he hissed to himself. Cloud's gaze narrowed over at him.

"Barrett," Cloud turned over, Barrett was frowning heavily at Zack. "If Zack can't walk anymore, can you carry him?"

"Eh?" Barrett blinked. "Why would I wan' to carry his scrawny ass?"

"See?" Zack called in forced excitement, "he really does like my ass."

Aerith blushed heavily at their banter, and Cloud rolled his eyes before walking out. The feline, Red XIII, tilted his head before he – it had a male voice, so why not – followed Cloud wordlessly.

When the blond passed Tifa, he paused. "Are you alright?" he asked softly. Tifa stared at his glowing eyes, before nodding stupidly.

Cloud's face ducked into a confused quirk before nodding. "Well, that's good." Then he walked off, Tifa dropped her head to hide the silly blush on her face. Grow up, honestly.

"Zack!" Aerith's voice registered even before the sound of a body falling to the floor was noticed. Tifa spun to find Zack sprawled along the ground.

"Okay," he heaved as he pushed himself to his elbows, "tripping over your own foot is really not the way to start walking."

Aerith stared hopelessly at Barrett, and the action made Tifa realize that she had not been formally introduced to the large man. Barrett didn't seem to notice, because – rather resigned – he picked up Zack and flung him over his shoulder.

Zack screamed in pain. Barrett nearly dropped his charge and Aerith froze in her tracks.

"Sorry!" Zack bit hard on his lip. "Just… mindful of the arm. I'd still like to have it."

Barrett stared at him in incredulity.

Cloud paused at the interaction, "We should leave," he looked to the hallway, "before Shinra figures out their superiors are fine and lock the building down."

* * *

><p><em> AN: Okay! New chapter! Next one is about quarter-way done already, and once more, should be up between a week to two weeks. I hope everyone likes Genesis in this one, and the Aphrodine. And the reunion... and Zack. Can't forget about him! Hope everyone's exams went well and REVIEW pretty please!_


	8. Chapter 8

Cross Zone

Chapter Eight

* * *

><p>Kunsel didn't necessarily get <em>scared<em>. However his anxiety levels were prone to sky-rocket when things did not go accordingly. The unknown was unpredictable, or to him it was. His luck never seemed to be with him when it counted, like it did now. He didn't dare move, really, and he tried to tell himself that he wasn't being a coward, nearly to no avail.

Genesis was famed for his brutality during the Wutai War.

The three great 1st's, the joke was, were nothing alike. The great general himself was the calm, collected one; on task and taking no personal enjoyment in his work. He was efficient, he was the ideal soldier. Angeal was patient, had honour and gave mercy, and Genesis...was the one without mercy. He was the one who, if allowed, would have slit your throat had the whim arose.

Or, those were the stories; rumours he collected over the years in his time in SOLDIER. He should have joined the Turks, to be honest, however there was something so horribly…_sinister_ about the Turks that he kept abay. He could do the work he wanted, however he had a feeling that the Turks' job ended up being far messier than any SOLDIER's.

Genesis looked mildly uncomfortable. The man was a few inches taller than he was, and it was a shock to look at him now. Colour drained into his face visibly, dull, grey ends of his hair returned to vibrant auburn, and the wing…shrunk.

The feathers had been rustling in a very…well…_creepy_ manner and the sound of the occasional breaking was far too…organic, he supposed, to stand and ignore. The wet popping that reminded him of bones breaking made him shift uncomfortably, stealing the occasional glance at the SOLDIER 1st. Genesis had taken to staring out at Midgar, the city that never slept but exhausted nonetheless.

There was a grimace of pain on his face…so…he could feel the snapping bones. Quickly ducking his head, for fear that he might be caught staring, Kunsel instead took to watching the inky, silk-like feathers as they broke and became ugly.

The vane of the long flight feathers had been shoved into disarray, the barb pushed the opposite direction of growth, and it looked…tattered.

"Such is the price, one could argue, of the Gift of the Goddess."

Kunsel froze, clamping his teeth together and forcing his chin up so that he wouldn't look like the coward he was feeling.

"Is it?" It was so much easier talking over the phone, or rather, when Genesis' pupils weren't as large as the irises.

"In the end, all is barren." He was mixing up the lines of even his favourite play. Or his obsession, there was a clear difference and Kunsel did not know Genesis well enough to determine which side of the line the 1st was on.

The elevator stopped, opening up to the wreckage of sliced through steel doors. Genesis' work.

* * *

><p>Aerith didn't – wouldn't, ever – hover. At least she knew how people respected their space and she felt that she had a slight understanding of when to encroach on it. That being said, she kept to the back, the space between her, Zack, and Cloud equal distances apart.<p>

Zack was fighting the losing battle of staying awake, and she honestly couldn't blame him. Inwardly she went through the scenario of casting a sleep spell on him, however she concluded it would be unwise. She crossed her fingers, just to be safe.

Tifa was at the very back, behind her trailing steps.

"How," she felt odd talking about him when he was right there, and for most case and purposes awake, "did you guys meet Zack?" She linked her thumbs together, her eyes locked on the bruised mess of Zack's face. She couldn't be certain, but there appeared to be deep circles under his eyes.

She had no inkling as to whether those were there before the rescue operation or because of it. She frowned anyway – after all, it was hardly something to smile about was it?

_He fell to the floor, the squelch a shock in the dead silence_.

She winced and shook her head to cast the image away. She wouldn't say something like 'it had to be done' because that would reduce their lives to nothing more than targets. She wouldn't do that – she would…_never_ do that again.

"There is mass chaos in the slums," Cloud explained when no one else did. Barrett was talking to Zack, however it had been minutes since his load replied. "He walked into your church. When he saw us he asked if he could stay there."

"That's it?" she gasped, "he just walked in, and then he agreed…to help?" What sort of idiot was he? Aerith tilted her head away and glared at the floor. If only…if only those Turks hadn't caught her after she dropped Marlene off…

The guilt ate away at her – she wouldn't let it. She wouldn't let the tiny voice that screamed at her that 'it was _all_ her fault'…she wouldn't. That voice wasn't even in her thoughts - _Stop, Aerith. Focus, focus. Atone_.

There was a heavy silence, and strangely enough it wasn't due to the lack of noise. She felt no need to break it, no will to break it, in fact she felt like something was sucking her from the inside out. It left her hollow, empty, made her limbs feel like lead. She felt like crying, but she ripped that urge apart. Now was really not the time. Tifa did not cry, she never cried. She stood strong and capable and independent.

Walking past the unconscious men, locked in the shimmering crystals of her spell, gave her another thought. They were still alive, and while it would have been easier to give them devastating wounds, she had not. The idea lightened her steps, before that dark thought creeped in at the edge of her mind.

_Since when was the death of one atoned for with mercy for two?_

Her mother had said that, not directly, but it was in an old story that she knew. That line was repeated so many times, however at the moment she could not remember the tale itself. Anxiousness bled into her bones when she realized that whatever the tale was it was important.

Leave it for now.

"Aerith." The call of her name broke her out of her cogitative state. She snapped her head up to Cloud, the speaker. He didn't outwardly show emotion, but she knew what he was asking regardless. She dragged the corners of her mouth up.

"I'm fine." _I'm not_. "Not a scratch on me!" She waved her hands around her head lightly, rotating her wrists to show that she had naught a paper cut. Cloud had too much to deal with to be concerned with her problems. She had no place to dictate where his worries went.

It was…different with Zack.

She missed a step in that moment, as for some strange reason she felt as if the distance between the aforementioned man and her doubled, then tripled. As if suddenly there was a wall. They were safe, she didn't want their bond broken.

He was still only a few feet from her. "I think," she started, because Cloud seemed to be worried by her quietness, "that I may have to trade bodyguards." She teased. Her heart wasn't in it. He didn't deserve to be lied to, even if it was only in the sense that she wasn't being truthful about herself.

Cloud didn't notice. She didn't think he did.

"Perhaps." He stated, though the words were a mockery. Too light for the situation. Too light to be dealt with in her growing depression, or not light enough. She wasn't sure which.

They reached the elevator. The button was pushed, however no light lit up. Cloud tried again, and once more, nothing activated. With a curse he seldom used, he turned and leaned heavily on the doors. "They've restricted access."

"Wha' does that mean?" Barrett grumbled. "I swear, if it's another flight o' stairs-"

"The elevators still work," he cut Barrett off, perhaps out of exasperation. Aerith couldn't be sure, however it seemed as if Cloud had heard Barrett's complaints far too many times. "However access is restricted."

Aerith frowned. Tifa shifted uncomfortably behind. Red XIII walked up beside her, and listened intently. She found it strange that the beast could talk, but hardly spoke a word.

The beast opened his mouth, "We could try the stairs -"

"Hell _no_. Especially with this kid here takin' a snooze on my back!"

Cloud sighed. "Barrett…"

"The doors are locked, righ'?"

"There are ways to get through enforced doors." Cloud's cautiousness caused a light giggle to erupt from Aerith's throat. The noise made her feel…lighter. Barrett's face was hilarious, before he rolled his head and his eyes, and stalked over to where the stairs were not far away.

"Get yer ass movin' then, Spikey."

"Spikey?" Tifa echoed. Aerith glanced back at her friend, and gave her an inquiring expression. What was so significant about the man calling Cloud a nickname? Granted she had never met him before, only putting name to face by his daughter's description. His personality was spot on to the depiction she was given as well.

Tifa noticed the glance and shook herself before shaking her head that it was nothing. Aerith let it go. She wasn't in the mood to pry. They hurried over to the doors, where Cloud slid the stained blade out from its sheathe smoothly. He took a stance, held the blade in-between both of his hands.

It made Aerith nervous. The blood flickered before her, becoming fresh one moment, dull the next. She shook her head to still the image, and in one last flash, bright green stings met her gaze.

She faltered, her steps stumbling until her body collided with the off-white walls. Her vision fluttered, however nothing else changed, and she had missed it. Cloud had sliced through the doors in a blatant display of strength and she had missed it.

A warm hand petted her shoulder. "Are you okay?" She didn't need to look up at Tifa's face, and instead she nodded.

"I'm just a little dizzy." That had to be it. Just as Zack had come off of the adrenaline rush and collapsed, so had she. "Overpowering a spell really takes a lot out of you." She shrugged, and it was true. She felt so tired, like she was about to fall asleep.

"I don't think Barrett would appreciate that, Miss." The creature beside her advised. Aerith managed to smile at it.

"He really wouldn't," she looked over to Tifa as the group stepped through the gaping hole in the door, the metal cut to such a fine edge it had become a weapon itself. "Could you imagine though?"

"Imagine what?" Tifa asked, playing along with the game flawlessly. They weren't in Shinra, really, they were in her church as Barrett snoozed on the benches and Cloud stared off into thought.

"Barrett's face." That needed more elaboration. "If he acts like that because he has to carry Zack-"

Tifa nodded with a smile, however it was just as strained as her muscles. Tensed and coiled.

"Tifa," Aerith began again, this time there was no pseudo teasing. "Can you teach me how to fight?"

Tifa blinked and looked over to Aerith. "I'm not sure my style would suit you."

"I…" Aerith glanced once more over to Cloud whose hair bounced with the steps as he led the group down. "I need to learn how to fight."

"You do know how." Tifa wasn't getting it. "I wouldn't have been able to kick those SOLDIERS asses if it wasn't for you." That wasn't it.

"I…" _I don't want to kill._

"You should ask Cl-" She broke off, and Aerith took note of her frozen expression. "Um… never mind. Sure, I'll teach you."

The jealousy in her tone was unnerving. The guilt that tugged on her features before she covered it up was telling.

Aerith wisely decided to comment on neither.

* * *

><p>"Genesis," Kunsel kept his voice low and even, for the man who more or less floated behind him had his sword in hand and the Aphrodine was before them. "You will need to carefully cut through the bolts on the floor."<p>

Kunsel wouldn't have dared utter that sentence, had it not been for the fact that the full effects of the Aphrodine had apparently kicked in and were at their height. Genesis' wayward expression snapped to the tank and he did just as told.

Once he was done the sword swung in an arch of devastating speed and accuracy and he had to duck at the last moment to avoid being decapitated.

"I don't appreciate," his words were surprisingly clear for the intoxication he was under, "being ordered."

"I'm sorry." He couldn't breathe – he could feel the air as the _atoms_ were sliced in half with the attack. He was hyperventilating, and it was only a small consolation when Genesis sheathed his sword and relinquished his killer intentions. The expression melted off, the tensed muscles and that _intent_ was gone. Kunsel still found it difficult to breathe.

"Elevator," he whispered gently, "roof."

The hum of acknowledgement was enough to have Kunsel cringe, however, thankfully there was no _whoosh_ as the blade cut through the air. Considering himself safe enough, he slowly unfurled himself. Genesis placed two hands on the edge of the tank, and then pulled it as if its weight were meaningless to him.

It felt…rude.

Like hell Kunsel was going to try to be 'polite'. Helping the 1st Class when he wasn't sure if his help was needed or not seemed to be risky. Perhaps he could just pretend to trip along, like he was _trying to help_ but_not really_. That way if he was supposed to then there was reason for him not to be, and if he wasn't he would just look like an idiot.

The metal scraped along the walls, the metal doors, and the carpet loudly, however the scarlet clad psychopath treated it like he truly had found the Goddess' Gift. Not one vial cracked, not one drop fell.

In that moment he was ripped out of his vague thoughts as he realized that between Genesis' wing and the tank of Aphrodine, he was not going to fit.

"I'll take it." The offer was still lazy, or rather the lazy lisp was still there. Kunsel blinked, before nodding – he would have to find his own escape route, unless Genesis had no intention of using the helicopter.

Just as well, the code for access he had acquired probably wouldn't match up to it anyway. At least this way Genesis would take his precious Aphrodine, and his own piece of the deal would be complete.

One step closer.

Just a few more left. Angeal was next, however getting out of Shinra in the first place was paramount. Genesis leaned over and messily selected numbers, he laughed gaily. However, just before the doors closed the expression dropped until Kunsel was certain he was looking into the face of death itself.

* * *

><p>Inside the boardroom, the officials were having a hissy fit. It was really the only proper way to describe it. Locked inside their own grand room, with no longer the trifling matters of whether they still had the funds or not to rebuild sector seven.<p>

He had proposed to not bother, to allow the masses fear Shinra and work for their own gain. Why appease the swarm of ants when they could easily bend over backwards to adhere to your own whims? The money would rise in profit if there wasn't so much output.

However, of course, his _father_ wouldn't think of such a simple solution. The final verdict was to draw up the plans and from there continue to hold it back. Raise taxes, promise the people their lives and a shiny new sector seven, never give it to them.

His fingers were loosely interlocked and his elbows rested on the glossy table. There was no point in his being there, for a long time had passed since he needed to exist as his father's shadow to 'learn the ropes'. It had been a long time since he realized that his own methods were more efficient, that they would get him to the 'unattainable' goal.

The Promised Land. Some texts revered it as an afterlife for the saints. Others proclaimed that it was there that the purest of mako energy gushed from abundant streams. Mako, the power source of comfort – the liquid asset to his fortune. His father searched it out for the folklore of it being the elixir of life, the golden river of immortality.

The Neo-Midgar project really was just a failed excuse to save his own face. Not that the man wasn't planning on it, a new city, bright and beautiful where he would rule as the tyrant over all. The new Midgar, a place he planned to make as grand as the Gold Saucer.

And The Promised Land would give him the longevity to rule it for as long as he wanted. Old age had frightened him, how pathetic.

He never quite understood the man's incessant need to stuff his guts, raising blood pressure, adding cholesterol, cutting back on the life he oh so salivated after. Rich and eternal life, however lusting after lengthened life was pointless. Their scientists, regardless of the select few who were privy to the information, had already found ways to lengthen life.

It was through Jenova, however even he was wary of attempting any sort of surgery. Sephiroth had massacred an entire village before disappearing into the shadows of incongruity. No one knew of his whereabouts. In retaliation he frequently requested Cissnei for the tabs she kept on the wayward scientists. They seemed to have a rather difficult time abiding by the Code of Ethics his father set up as a formality. It was a real shame that they were not more ambitious. Aside from the late Hollandar and the current Hojo, the only scientist to make note of was Professor Gast, who too, was dead.

The rest conducted their raunchy experiments with the ego of the Planet and the results of an infantryman. The Aphrodine had been a failure, however even failures had their value. The tick in his mouth went unnoticed as his father yelled until his face was beet red and his cheeks bulged horribly. Scarlet had long since taken his mood as an indicator and sat coolly in her chair, grinding her teeth.

Heidegger had thankfully forgone laughter, however his voice in general was not much of an improvement. They were all arguing with the cool Tseng, who merely repeated in a polite and monotone voice how they were taking care of the situation. When asked how, the man said they were following code as per the late Lazard's directions.

His dear older brother still bested them all in tactical superiority, even after years of his 'death'. What a sad, small existence, and yet at the same time he was still outshone by the illegitimate son. Lazard had more or less progressed in his goals. He seemed to be stuck in a stalemate.

It was really only a matter of time before the fear for their own lives would subside, and the new, important questions would arise. The leash was stretched thin for him here, for while his father forgave him, the man never forgot.

He was not allowed to openly disagree, overrule, or insert his presence during a board meeting, or with any of the high-ranking members.

With a slight cough into his hands, an action that subtly brought Tseng's attention – and a frown – he realized how much he envied the 'lower heads'. They actually had jobs to do. Hojo was away, at one of the labs he had yet to discover the location of, the Head of Accounting was busy redrawing the plans for funding, the Head of Welfare was working with the Head of Accounting.

The Head of Urban Development looked sick, however he had not been looking well since he first arrived. His protests had been vehement for the rebuilding. It was quite commendable.

It was a pity his father was so adamant about his Neo-Midgar that Reeve's protests were quickly silenced. With Heidegger laughing afterwards.

"Do you have any information about the intruders?" Scarlet's shrill voice finally pierced well over the duo of his father and the buffoon who sat next to him. It was not an improvement, but thankfully there was less noise.

"We have Intel," Tseng replied, the answer schooled and his face void of any emotion, "however it remains inconclusive."

"Well," his father huffed. He lifted himself and fell back into the chair, which gave into the pressure of the weight that was suddenly redistributed. "Who is it?"

Removing his hands from the table, Rufus Shinra turned to look over at the man of the hour, the one who had single-handedly attained the attention of every member of the room. Best yet, he had done so and kept them equally silent.

"There are reports that Colonel Strife is within the building with the renegade remains of AVALANCHE."

Hojo was going to have a fit when he returned and learned his precious replacement had slipped through his fingers.

Tseng straightened his already rigid stance. "In addition there has been a breach on floor 63."

This was interesting. Rufus, wisely keeping his mouth shut, listened on. His father had a habit of only hearing treachery, he did not look too deep unless it was openly alluded to. Or rather, the Turks had no reason to report any actions on his part to his father if he only appeared to be a petulant child.

"Well?" Heidegger huffed. "Who was it?"

Tseng was silent. "The team sent to ascertain the situation was eliminated from where they were redirected and we have lost contact."

His father was going to explode. It was too predictable, really. The man had dreams, ambition, and a heinous sense of humour, however he did not take failure well. In a sense his anger was even a catastrophe, because rather than strike fear into those around him, he made them want to laugh.

Scarlet had once, however she had the magical touch of appeasing his father with a few bats of her eyelashes and a few glimpses at just the right angle.

"There are two threats?" His father slammed his fist into the table, and even Heidegger fell completely silent.

Reeve had looked off to the side, a small grin threatening to split his face.

* * *

><p>Cloud fought the rest of their enemy. Aerith looked…shocked at seeing Cloud kill in such a blasé manner. It was not surprise, it was not horror, however her eyes glazed over and thrice now she had sent overpowered sleep spells to Cloud's enemies to spare them from his wrath.<p>

It was thrice now that Cloud had apologized.

It was thrice now that Aerith gave him a weak smile back and told him that it was okay. She thanked him every time he lead them onward from the knocked out infantrymen, SOLDIERs (3rd Class, mostly, a few 2nd Classes) and it was then that Cloud asked the question that had been at the back of Tifa's mind for the past ten minutes or so as they made their way slowly out of the building.

"I wonder where all the 1sts went." It was just an observation, however it actually had Barrett skidding to a stop. He spun, whacking Zack's head against the wall he stood near to. Tifa gaped in shock at the action, unable to completely comprehend what had just happened in her darkening exhaustion.

Aerith felt it too, if the delayed reaction she gave was any indicator.

Barrett blinked before he looked back. "Ah, sorry, didn' see you there." He muttered, and took deliberate steps away from the wall. Zack gave a groan, however from what she could tell, did not wake up. Aerith was by his side now – when had she done that?

She patted his head. Raising her hands a soft green glow appeared for a few moments. Tifa didn't mean to look questioning, however when Aerith looked over she explained, "to make sure he didn't get a concussion or anything."

Tifa knew, or, she thought she knew. Her limbs felt dead and her feet dragged on. Cloud took point and his limitless energy had become their shield. Barrett was officially out of ammo, a feat in itself, and he had taken to beating back whoever came too close to him before Cloud meticulously slaughtered them.

She wasn't sure if this was murder, or if this was war. It could be the extent of human stupidity, if they continued to attack regardless of the ten or so that had fallen before them. She watched as one guard, clothed in purple, shook in the corner.

"You can run," she called to the evidently freshly promoted 3rd, who nodded but stayed where he was.

He couldn't abandon them. He refused to fight; however he couldn't leave and be excommunicated. What a disgrace. Feeling pity, she rushed him, and for a brief moment he raised his sword, before he noted how high her fist was, and dropped it.

She slammed her fist into his temple; knocking him to the side enough that he could claim he was unconscious, and stepped back.

They had taken the stairs. After opening the elevator shaft, and allowing Barrett to have a good glimpse of the trek that they would have to undergo, Barrett had taken it upon himself as AVALANCHE's leader to take the stairs.

He only had one hand to hold on with, and unlike the wire from before, there was no thick bar to grab on, there were no footholds or grips.

It was a single wire – many of them, granted, however that did nothing to diminish the fact that Zack was unconscious on his back and he had been granted the task of keeping the man alive and safe.

She worried for Aerith, she worried the most for Cloud, however he was the only one who actually seemed to be ready to fight. Not that much different than before, or when they woke up that morning. He didn't burst with energy like he had before, subdued and quiet it may have been…

Now he just…kept going. It was unnatural, it made her sick with worry, it made her place Cloud and Seph -_ him_ in tandem, and the similarities were sickening. She pushed them aside, living in denial because that was safe. Cloud was not the one who had committed the sins against her, he was the one who would help her exact revenge if she so asked.

But she wouldn't, because if she did it wouldn't be because Cloud missed his mother, his home. It wouldn't be because she asked him. It would be because he fought whatever was poised as an enemy, all she needed to do was to point.

Stop, Tifa. She was tired, her thoughts were beginning to confuse her. Cloud was not the murderer, he was still the boy who had blushed heavily every time she walked by. He was the little blond boy, picked on by her friends, yet the same boy who was so reliable.

The boy who, after he'd left, she found herself wondering about.

The result was not the fantasy of her wonderings.

Another floor, another, another. She lost count. When had they entered the fire stairwell? The gray concrete such a shock. Aerith was lagging behind – grab her Tifa. Throwing out a hand she reached for Aerith's arm. The poor girl looked close to delirium, such a worse fate than mere exhaustion. Tifa needed sleep, Aerith needed a coma.

A nose brushed her hand, and she looked down at the dog. She thought…hard. What was it? Where had it come from?

"Just a little further," it encouraged, gentle, soft. It made her want to curl in the corner, not run down another flight. Couldn't it tell? She nodded nonetheless and continued to run. She dragged Aerith behind her.

Cloud stopped for a moment, Barrett whined loudly. Cloud was still awake; he had the blessing of physical opponents to fight, rather than massive fatigue.

"Aerith," he said, taking note of the fever she seemed to have blossomed in her cheeks. "Here, I'll carry you."

Why not me, Cloud? Tifa thought it, and let Cloud drag Aerith to him gently, the soft caresses along the way could have been a dream. It could also have been reality. Tifa shook herself. She wouldn't be weak, even to appeal to him.

Cloud coerced Aerith to climb on his back, to bunch her long skirt up and hook her ankles together around him. With one arm he held her up underneath a knee, the other kept the sword in hand.

"Be ready if I need to drop you," he warned, and Aerith nodded her head into the back of his neck.

Tifa hated to admit it, however the couple in front of her looked too perfect for words.

Dimly she wondered what wonder-boy Zack would have thought of their intimacy had he been awake. Then again, it was very likely that, had Zack been conscious, Aerith would have been wrapped around his frame, and not Cloud's.

If only.

* * *

><p>Kunsel needed to get out, and fast. To the best of his knowledge not many knew what his face looked like, so he could theoretically find a helmet and shove it on. That way if the surveillance team tried to do a face-recognition on him with others throughout the building he would fade into the background of helmet-wearing infantrymen.<p>

There was always the possibility that they would recognize him, however it had been a few generous years since he had his photo taken for his SOLDIER ID, and he believed himself to have changed in those years. Slightly, or perhaps the similarity would throw people off.

Either way, he needed to get out of the building as quietly as he could, because not even he could shake off the bloodhounds of Shinra, otherwise known as the Turks. He panicked slightly in front of the closed elevator, his feet changing directions from left to right without his notice.

"Calm down," he growled to himself, and planted his feet. He was on the wrong floor to be loitering on. The pathetic part of it all was that the floor he was on had forgone having a stairwell, and instead opted for a full window wall so that, had the need arisen, they could simply blow it out and reclaim all of their property.

People weren't supposed to be _on_ this floor.

Hesitantly, he called for the elevator. The indicator was shining brightly at '70' showing Genesis' safe (he assumed) arrival to the roof. The President would still be locked away at the boardroom meeting, so the security should be lax there.

After all, why bother protecting a relatively useless space when the reason it would need to be protected was not even there? Then again, it wouldn't matter regardless – who was going to stand in Genesis' way?

A delirious, dangerous, psychopathic Genesis.

The elevator slowly pushed itself down, which was a feat due to the sheer speed the creatures operated at. He would have to take his chances; the elevators were locked only to the floors that had stairs, for safety, and to redirect and therefore stall whoever it was that Shinra was trying to keep out.

Or in this case, in.

He hoped desperately that Zack and his friends actually managed to escape, that there was a reason for the restrictions on the elevators. If it were true, then there was a fine chance that no one would be on the elevator when it opened. If they'd failed…he would be eating lead, as the saying goes.

The door opened with a musical chime, and he nearly fell to the floor in relief when an empty room opened up to meet him.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Hope you enjoyed it! Next chapter is already finished and with my Beta, so it should be up 1-2 weeks! Please **review** and if you have time it would be wonderful if you checked out my website: www. darksentences .com (without the spaces). _


	9. Chapter 9

Cross Zone

Chapter Nine

* * *

><p>It was all a mess. A mess that they had to clean up, but still a mess. Tifa sighed as she fell on the bed, the covers bending under her mass. She looked over, to where Aerith lay, sleeping soundly.<p>

"It would really help if you would wake up." Perhaps not now though, she was dead on her feet as it was. "I should go and check to make sure Red is comfortable…" With a groan of creaking joints she stood.

"Get some sleep, Tifa." The soft voice came as a shock, and she stumbled slightly as she fell. Blearily, she looked over to the source. Through clouded darkness she made out a head of blonde hair. "I'll watch them."

"Are Barrett and Red okay?" she asked, the world swaying. The mass in the corner moved, and a hand snaked around her waist and began to guide her out of the Inn's room and into the hallway.

"They will manage."

"Are you okay?"

"Tifa," he closed the door behind him, "stop."

"Are you?" She pressed, her head ringing from the blow it received. "Okay!" She waved a hand to his face, her body shutting down on her, pressing the urge to sleep on all corners.

"Tifa," he repeated, and she had to wonder why he kept saying her name, "you need to go to sleep."

"What if someone finds us?" She turned her body, slipping from him and jamming her back against the door handle to her room. "You haven't slept. I haven't. It's…fair."

"I can go days without sleep."

"I'm an insomniac."

"In your dreams." His lithe fingers slid behind her, opening the door. She fell backwards before he caught her. She swayed aimlessly, vertigo not affecting her. Her long hair swung free, the hair-tie lost in the final stretch.

"Well," she pondered this, "yes, usually."

When had the bed become the floor? When had blankets been put on her shoulders?

"Goodnight Tifa."

She accepted it. Her mumbled farewell not heard as the click signified his departure.

* * *

><p><em>Their heels hit hard, and it jostled Aerith every time from the dark sweet nothingness that serenaded to her in soft tunes. She sighed and tightened her grip. Cloud mirrored her, shifting her body until once more she was settled.<em>

_Somewhere at the back of her mind, she felt like she needed to do something. It was a horribly sickening feeling that settled itself in her gut and wrapped around her organs like an anaconda. __It made her force her eyelids apart, holding them open by the weight of her will__. The gray mass was hard to differentiate, before shapes began to take form, and the stairs were revealed._

_They were running down stairs._

_Occasionally bright flashes of green blinded her, the shower of lights appearing after each rise and dip of Cloud's arm. What was he doing? She couldn't keep her eyes open. Her system felt empty, her blood felt thin._

* * *

><p>Her hair had been braided, the strands tied together at the top of her head. Tsking her tongue, she felt at a loss. She already had an armful of clothes of dark blues, blacks, with a few lighter colours for the sake of merriment. <em>Her<em> clothes were easy, the few outfits a necessity as her home had been annihilated.

It was Aerith's clothes that were giving her trouble. Out of respect she'd tried to pick out colours that would suit the girl, outfits that would please her. However, perhaps it was because Aerith was just so…_girly_. Tifa hadn't thought of wearing something so frilly in a long while.

Dashing aside hangers with large price tags, she opted instead to change her friend's style altogether. Aerith could handle shorts, couldn't she?

"How am I supposed to pick something out for Barrett?" The soft voice had her attention immediately, and taking her time, so as to not appear too desperate, Tifa shifted through another set of dresses.

"Pick the largest size?" she suggested, her cheeks growing warm at the thoughts that ran through her head. Cloud doing such a domestic thing as clothing shopping was honestly too surreal for her. "Make sure to pick a larger size than you for Zack." She felt silly, felt like a mom.

She did not want to be his mom. She wasn't, so she was okay, but still.

Picking up an – admittedly cute – top she added it to Aerith's soon to be clothes list. Odd thing was her friend still had the option of wearing her own clothes, sad thing was it was too dangerous for Aerith to go back to her house to retrieve them.

"This'll do." It would have to, because she wasn't going to come back.

* * *

><p><em>They all towered over him, racing and ignoring. It was not that he minded, however he felt like an intruder. The shame that built was nerve-wracking, and the fact that his Grandfather's lectures echoed through his ears now was sorely unwanted.<em>

_He sighed, keeping an eye on the black haired one, who looked like she too was at her limits. A growl rose from his throat, before he pushed it back down. Now, now, no need to be like that. People would take it the wrong way, they were strangers._

_Remember that._

_Still, his gaze followed the black-haired one. Watching, cautious for when (and if) she decided her body had been pushed too far. He was nigh certain he had the strength to carry her if the need were to arise. It was making sure she wouldn't fall off…_

_His hind leg winced horribly, he let out a soft growl, something he suppressed, before kicking the pain off and continuing. They took the steps so slowly, their long legs not allowing for the balance that his gave. The sense of pride was hubris, best to get rid of it._

* * *

><p>The worst part of it all, definitely had to be the waiting. It was somewhat ironic, really, that Tifa usually felt like she had an enormous amount of patience, but the waiting right now was killing her. Watching Cloud had been the preferable alternative, however he had left nearly an hour before.<p>

Out to procure them dinner, she had concluded.

Barrett was the worst. He paced, he was cooped, and nothing she could say to him would make him less restless. Sometimes his angered frustrations would break into small bouts of worry, first for Marlene, then small snippets for Zack's well being, and eventually Aerith's.

He had taken the spot in the corner of their room, watching over their two unconscious patients. Oh, and Red too; the creature. With a sigh, closing the door behind her, locking it for safe measure – Cloud had a key – she slid her feet across the floor and sat next to Red, whose heavy body had taken to lounging along the base of Aerith's bed.

"So," she began, awkwardly, drumming her fingers along her knees. Barrett looked up, his first thought that the conversation was directed at him.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Red," Tifa blinked as she addressed the feline…dog (she never was going to decide what he was, was she?). Her and Barrett's speech fell into synchronization.

"Say so, before next time," the large man huffed, before crossing his arms. Tifa shrugged, knowing that regardless of the attitude he portrayed, he was going to listen to every word she said.

"Is there something you needed?" the creature asked, lifting his head to look over at her. "Anything I can do?"

"Oh, no," she nodded over to the door. "Cloud's gone to get everyone dinner." Cloud…he seemed more distant than ever – was it because he was physically there more that he had to recede back into his mind? If so, then _what_ exactly could he be thinking about that could put him into daydream after daydream?

Stupid Tifa, you're thinking silly thoughts again.

The awkwardness settled in, and Tifa wrung her fingers together, not knowing what to say. Suddenly asking felt too personal – after all, who was she to dredge up the painful memories that may (or may not be) associated with his capture? Who was she to make him brood on what the scientists had done to him?

She wasn't Aerith, she couldn't be warm and compassionate while asking about delicate topics. She always appeared insincere, never able to sympathize, never able to empathize. Aerith, what had she gone through? She had been kidnapped, she was an Ancient, Turks were after her…

_He _destroyed everything.

She had been through so much…everyone…Tifa shook her head, carefully unfisting her fingers from the clench they had unconsciously gone into.

"Is…everything alright?" Red sounded cautious, or perhaps that was how he usually sounded. She wasn't sure. The constant growl in his accent made it hard to determine the right emotions.

"I…" _I was thinking about home_, "just wanted to say thank you." She smiled, it was forced, but then again who would be able to tell? No one; they saw the happy, confident girl she needed to be. Too bad that pretending to be something better never _made_ one better.

* * *

><p><em>They were so close Tifa felt like crying, in fact, she may have been crying – a quick sweep with a hand and nothing moist came away. Okay, she was good. Everything was fine and dandy and she wasn't crying to boot. <em>Hey_, a voice reminded, _if you keep this up then wearing make-up will be a breeze!

_She didn't wear make-up, she hated faces, masks, which was part of the problem. She didn't _hate_ herself, per say, however the mask was thick, suffocating, and she was completely vulnerable without it. Where would she be right now without her hate? Lost within her own grief – like hell there was a way to accept and move on from _that_._

"_Watch it!" The growl was deep, inhuman, it made her fear for her life, even as they spilled out of the stairwell and out onto the main lobby. Where, what? In a flash fire reached too close – hot, hot, she leaned back on a heel, before following with the momentum and kicking out._

_Her foot met air, and she fell ceremoniously on her ass. With a grunt of pain as her tailbone smashed against her skin, she flinched. There, Cloud stood, eyes locked on her and his sword's tip aimed at the perpetrator who nearly melted her face off._

_"Thank you," she said to him, meaning every word. He shook his head._

_There was no spilling blood from the edge of the blade. Men were everywhere, here, there, behind her. The clicking of guns was only dimly noted. Focus came back, the floor first, the threads in the carpet, then the pattern. She raised her head. Now, beside Cloud, was Aerith, her green eyes drooping, her knees shaking._

_Not in fear, not Aerith, she was a rock stronger than any hook Tifa could throw._

_Stronger than her, a real role model. It made her sick. Move on, you're bitter, move on. Tifa, listen, you are not Aerith, you are not, you were never meant to be. She is your friend, you cherish her, when you're fully awake._

_Barrett grumbled, had he said he was going to drop someone? She waited for the motion, her breath stuck between her teeth. No, the body was gently settled to the floor._

_"Damn, kid, yer such a pain in my ass." He grumbled, before throwing his gun arm up, pretending. "Yo!" he called out, "Move outta tha way before I blow up all yer asses! Shinra _scum_."_

_But, Barrett, you don't have any bullets left. You can't shoot anyone. Cloud's elbow tapped Aerith, who swayed dangerously with the action. Still, because she was Aerith, and Aerith had a sixth sense that Cloud fed off, her head turned and she stumbled over to Zack._

_She shook him, her face close to his bruising skin and whispered something. Zack didn't move, he hardly looked like he was breathing. Aerith paused, her head falling to his chest, before she pulled herself back with what looked to be a heave._

_She slapped him. Tifa couldn't believe that sweet, innocent Aerith had done such a move as swatting an unconscious man, but she did, her voice still not strong enough to reach Tifa's ears. Zack shifted, the groan was loud. Aerith's fingers began to tug, and the body came with her._

_Cloud and Barrett looked to each other, more than likely aware of the monstrous bloodbath that they had ensued. Slaughter, it was a _slaughter_. They came, they saw, they murdered. That was it. There was no mercy, not in the grand scheme._

Fear for your lives_, she wanted to advise_, even I will kill you in the state I'm in_. Pulling punches when she would have to focus entirely on the target? In a dream, perhaps, however her palm _would_ hit that windpipe, should she have a chance. In her experience she went through two types of exhaustion for a hand-to-hand fighter – the one where breaking the training engrained in her muscles to avoid killing was damn near impossible, and then the one where she missed entirely. She was only at the first. _

_She was tired, she couldn't think straight. She wanted to lie down and pass out. A twelve hour nap sounded great, just sleep, sleep, safe and content and no nightmares to keep her up. Aerith may not have the luxury, she was suffering from a different sort of energy loss. Zack…well._

_If Zack died before they returned to safety, she wouldn't be…shocked. She wasn't even fully certain she would be sad – no, maybe. She would have to think about it later._

_Someone was yelling, it was a shriek, really. She couldn't fully understand it, the base of the thought seemed to be that they wouldn't. The guards, they wouldn't do it. The SOLDIERs, the Thirds and the few 2nds that happened to be in the building…_

_Dead? She couldn't remember. Cloud had dealt with them, she had too – so a few _had_ to have been still alive. That was good, at least. What was a challenge without a few SOLDIERs roaming around the edge of their safety net?_

_A gun raised, Cloud tensed, she scrambled to her feet. The creature, what's its name – Red something, it had said. Red should be fine, close enough? It growled in such a feral manner a few guards stepped back._

"_Final frontier, huh?" she muttered, rolling her sore shoulders to loosen up the already locking muscles._

* * *

><p>She rolled and <em>groaned<em>. The light was too bright, her headache was pounding, she felt positively sick. Clamping her mouth down out of habit, she blindly searched. With a swift curse in her thoughts she wondered where that basket was. If she was going to throw up, it better at least be in her waste basket.

Those scrap attempts at poetry _should_ be thrown up upon. They were just _awful_. Aerith the poet, out. Aerith the painter – maybe. She would need to save up for the supplies. Maybe take a class first instead? See if she was any good? Oh, no, maybe Aerith the _sketcher_. That sounded reasonable.

"Aerith?"

No, not yet, she needed more sleep. With a numb hand – why did she keep sleeping on it, really? She waved the voice away. Her voice felt surprisingly hoarse as she grunted and shoved her face deep in the pillow. Had her mother washed it recently? It didn't smell like it usually did. It didn't smell like 'clean' either.

Strange.

Her world began to shake as a large force placed itself on her shoulder and rocked her. Her name was repeated, but she really just wanted a few more minutes in bed. She tried to swat the offending tsunami away, however the waves turned out to be too strong for her tiny ark.

Overboard! On Starboard!

She was pushed open and her eyes fluttered to take in a ceiling that was not hers. It was dirty, for one thing, with yellowing corners and a fan so broken its rotation was skewed. It spun on an angle, one side faster, the other side slower. It wobbled as if it were going to fall down and drill a hole in the floor.

"Wha?" Her fogged mind couldn't grasp what she was seeing. "Who?"

Dark hair fell into her nose and mouth. She sputtered, turning her face away. Someone was laughing, "sorry!" They didn't _sound_ too apologetic, but she forgave them anyway. Tifa – wait, no, yes. It was Tifa! Blinking, clearing the fog and the blur, with bleary eyes she looked over to the edge. There Tifa stood, clean white shirt and all, hair down and washed – which she should know, considering Aerith had more or less just ate it moments before.

"Tifa?" she croaked, not needing anyone's reminder at how awful she looked in mornings. Her skin always ended up blotchy, her eyes seemingly puffed up to spite her, and her breath – oh, _Planet_ was that another story. _You're missing something._

"Oh!" Right, Shinra —everyone! "You're okay!" They were, _she was_. Black hair and black bruises came into her mind, the shock of the reminder made her jump in haste, only for her blankets to tangle in a vise around her knees.

She hit the floor fast, hard, it made her head ring. Tifa was saying something, already hovering over her, helping her up. The ring was too shrill to make out what she was saying.

"Zack!" Aerith managed to huff, holding her head, her toes curling against the throbbing. Tifa gently lead her upwards.

"He's fine," she answered first. The amusement was clear in her voice. "You fell out of bed just for that?"

No, Zack thought he was _going to die_. She couldn't remember the lobby, she remembered there _was_ a lobby, remembered trying to wake him up. She couldn't remember how it ended – she was too exhausted to stop herself.

If Zack…really had…

She would never be able to forgive herself. She didn't even realize that between the time that Tifa had told her that Zack was fine and her remembering she had started to hyperventilate. She put a hand on her chest.

"Everyone else? Cloud? Barrett? Red XIII?" That was the dog's name, hopefully, but still, it was with them.

Everyone needed to have gotten out safely for her to calm down fully. The dread pouring in like a tempest through every pore she had was not welcome. It made the need to vomit come even stronger. Tifa's hands, no gloves, placed themselves steadily on her shoulder.

"Aerith," she called, but the name seemed so distant…"Aerith!" Her shoulders were shaken.

"Y-yeah." Tifa looked straight into her eyes, the dark wine colour seemed like such horrible foreshadowing. Her fingers twisted into the material of her… pants. She was wearing pants?

"They are fine. All alive – Zack's still out of it, but he's just sleeping."

They were okay. The sigh of relief made her boneless, and she slumped to the side. Tifa chuckled, once. It really was no laughing matter.

"I'm wearing pants?" The air was too thick for something so happy. Aerith's grin stretched wryly, before a thought came to her. "You were the one who did it, right?" She sat up, from the wall, and pointed hurriedly to Tifa's chest.

Tifa laughed. The action made the raven-haired fighter look so much younger. For a second Aerith couldn't understand what was so funny, as it _was_ her dignity on the line. She pushed Tifa's shoulder, prompting a response, but laughter continued.

Eventually, Aerith couldn't help but join in – after all, why not?

They _could_.

* * *

><p><em>Zack fell against her, the urgency woke her up, past the dark, beckoning, sweet – NO! He was going to die, Aerith.<em>

_"Come on!" she urged, Zack following her without a sound. She pulled him, one hand in his that squeezed weakly back, the other was fisted into the shredded remains of his shirt. She pulled him._

_They needed to get to the doors. She wished she could do more, but other than a mediocre spell that would knock her out, there was nothing else she could do. She _could_ and_would_ save Zack. She had to. There was nothing more tragic than someone who had so much to live for…than to die a death he fully accepted beforehand._

_She would not let it. She didn't realize she was babbling while dragging him, until he pushed her. The strength wouldn't normally have been enough, however she was fragile herself – no, never, really? She was strong! She would have to be! The ground flooded, no, it rushed. Either way she hit it and Zack pulled her right against him._

_The roar of bullets sounded like the ocean._

_"So… cake…" The mutters were incoherent, however something in them made her laugh as she held onto him, as if she could keep him there, in that world._

_The green flashed, behind him, a long wisp. It lasted only a moment, the green of materia, but at the same time _not, not_. She didn't understand. Zack's arm pushed her head down, the attempt successful more due to gravity than strength._

_She was supposed to protect him._

_That was right. What good was a person who couldn't even keep her word._

_"Come on," she huffed, promptly ignoring the darkening around the corners of her vision. "You can crawl – babies can crawl." Did that make sense? She wasn't sure, really, not. Yes, no, maybe? She pushed him up, and his leg slowly slid along the carpet._

_She followed him, keeping as flat to the ground as she could to avoid the overhead barrage. Why shoot them, after all? Cloud was the threat, Barrett was the threat, Tifa was the threat. The bodies on the floor were nothing. Not worth enough to waste bullets on._

_And imagine the wrath of the fighters?_

_Her hand felt surprisingly wet, and it took her a moment before realizing that her forearm and legs were also soaking – why? No, not soaking, warm, cold. Whatever it was that was wet was warm but cooling quickly. Pulling her palm back she blinked at the stark crimson._

_Blood._

_Glass, she noted it; it was everywhere; the glass doors had been shattered in the fusillade, the long shards cut her in numerous places. She couldn't even feel it, and with a quick prayer that Zack wouldn't either, she pushed him further._

_The metal base of the door was the problem. The shards stuck up, deadly knives prepared to impale at a moments notice. She held fast onto Zack, keeping him in place._

_"You…should learn to use doors," she joked, "they are so…amazing..."_

"…_know…" The mutter was barely heard, but it didn't matter. They needed to get out, then _run_. Run away and run to safety. Run until she passed out, and Zack no longer had a reason to stay awake. As it was he was heavily wounded, muscles could be torn, bones broken, he could have a concussion – could he? No…his eyesight was normal, his gaze followed her…_

_Everything went black._

* * *

><p>The bandages were the worst, probably. Tifa frowned as she watched Aerith accept her take-out dinner, frowned at the several bandages that hid the larger cuts. Cloud's energy had been spent after he healed Barrett, bringing him back from the brink of death, then her.<p>

The bullets had been more of a shock than the first time. She had been able to _feel_ them. She shook herself and rubbed her legs to get rid of the phantom pain. She had barely noticed the first bullet, and Cloud had healed her before she had a chance to…

Zack had been after, to save him from irreparable damage, Aerith had been last. By then the point was to stop the bleeding cuts…so many. It was horrifying how a person could become so bloody from so many shallow lacerations. The blood still coated her hair, the dark circles around her eyes were still a concern.

Cloud handed her hers, and Tifa took it. When their fingers brushed she pulled back, feeling silly. She took a peek. His blue eyes were back in the white plastic, his hand rummaging before he pulled out another styrofoam container and handed it to Barrett.

Silly Tifa, he didn't notice. Why would you think he would?

"Um," Cloud hesitated. "I wasn't sure what you would prefer…" His glowing gaze was fixated on their newest member.

Red, sitting on his hind legs, nodded politely. "Anything will do." That wasn't what Cloud was asking, "I like meat, I mean." He was stumbling over his words? Then again, the mere fact that the creature could speak was still awe-inspiring. "I don't get it often…but I like meat."

Cloud paused, his gaze darting to the remaining containers in the bag. "There's meat in them," he explained, pulling out another white container and handing it over. "You can pull the vegetables out."

Red took the container in his mouth, and Tifa _had_ to stare at how the feline's teeth sunk in with no resistance at all. To test, Tifa tried to jam her nail in the lid of her own, however it took her a moment before a large puncture popped.

Wow. Averting her gaze, even as Red said his thanks – she really didn't need to see how he would manage to open it – she plunged her chopsticks into the Wutain cuisine. Swirling the noodles around she shoved them in her mouth.

Okay, she was hungry, really, really hungry. Not to turn into a pig she settled for chewing fast and swallowing before she could taste. After the second bite she threw manners aside – with a swift apology to her papa – and dug in with a gusto that could only be a result of an empty stomach.

"Slow down, Tifa," Cloud said. He sounded…light. "You might choke."

Beaming up at him, because she had finally done something right – _finally_, she shrugged.

"You're just lucky I didn't start eating the curtains," she had to keep this going – Cloud…was not just talking. This was the sort of conversation they used to have. Silly, pointless,_this_ was a piece of the old Cloud.

She missed him.

His soft laughter wasn't as sincere as it used to be, but that was okay.

"I'm being serious!" She swatted lightly at his heel, and he nodded, agreeing with her but not meaning it.

Barrett grunted, the food being shoveled into his mouth too fast to contribute to the conversation.

"Better be careful," Tifa warned, "you wouldn't want to choke."

There was soft laughter all around.

But…not from Aerith. Frowning, Tifa looked over, wondering why. Aerith's hands were at her sides, chopsticks held between fingers.

The food had not been touched. Her eyes weren't even on them at all – instead…They were on Zack. Her gaze was locked on him, a light frown on her face. She was in a faraway place, but Zack was still sleeping, and his meal had been cooling on the bedstand beside him.

"Aerith?"

"Huh?" She snapped back, blinking. "Oh, wow. Can't believe I did that." She shook her head with a snicker. "Imagine Zack!" She carried on the conversation flawlessly, commanding everyone's attention without a single effort. "His food is going to be cold."

The awkward tilt that her spew ended with seemed to have gone unnoticed. Barrett suddenly joined in after a hard swallow.

"Yeah, the brat would probably start cryin' over his food. Can see 'im not wantin' his food cause it's too cold for him."

"He'd eat it anyway," Tifa added, because she needed to be a part of the whole group. Aerith might not notice, being the radiant person she was – _stupid radiance – _Tifa crushed the bitter thought immediately. She never wanted to be like Aerith, she wanted to be strong, to be the rock that held people together.

That would suit her best, she thought.

She always thought that.

"No," Cloud disagreed, "I could see him spitting it out."

Aerith laughed, Barrett choked.

"He would!" she gushed, "I can see that. He'd be so upset about it. Shoot. I'll probably feel bad and go get something for him…" She pouted and crossed her arms to the side, the tilt to her lips taking away from her seriousness.

"Don't worry about that!" Tifa added, the force too strong for the fragile tone of the conversation. She was losing confidence; she didn't want to be left out. "If worst comes to worst," she shrugged, "I can pin you down. Or rather, I can pin _him_ down, and give his dinner to Barrett."

Aerith laughed. "Oh," she sighed, wringing her hands together, "I can't _do_ that though."

Tifa nodded, it was too harsh. "We can dye his hair bright green instead. You know, as a little incentive for him to wake up sooner next time."

"Ha!" Barrett gasped over food, he grunted, fist on his chest before swallowing. "I'm for tha'."

Cloud ate quietly, seemingly at peace. Of course you would notice, Tifa. Red had forgone being an item in her thoughts – he was just eating quietly!

She shook her head. "Is something wrong, Cloud?" she asked instead, because even though she felt cheap for acting like Aerith, she couldn't help it.

"I was thinking." Way back when she would have teased him for that. "If Zack doesn't wake up soon, we will have to figure out a way to get him out of Midgar with us without being detected."

The cheer was shattered. Aerith's grin fell; Barrett returned to his food, thinking himself, Red's interest was gained. Cloud pondered off, the new one firmly in place, the old dissipated.

For one second, less even, Tifa hated Zack.

* * *

><p><em>She had been right when she thought she would kill them. That was how she refined her technique; it was meant for murder. She could control it, spare whoever she fought <em>but not when she was exhausted_. She was fighting on empty adrenaline, nothing to back it up._

_Her hands shook, her footing was off, but still she rushed people, knocking wrists away and crushing throats – for the unlucky ones – and snapping jaws – for the lucky ones. She couldn't even remember what she did after she had completed the movement. Right, left, up, kick, punch, down. Then forgotten._

_The first bullet brought searing pain, the tearing of flesh tearing her out of her daze. She couldn't…the calf was torn, the bullet missing bone but exploding through everything else like an angry missile. She limped and nearly fell. The cry was ripped from her lips, and the next bullet hit her thigh._

_No, no, no! She would _not_ die like this! No, she couldn't. She fell to the ground, and to her horror she waited for that last bullet, even dared for it to come. Dared for a tiny slug of metal to fly and hit her in her forehead._

_She dared them to kill her._

_The large body in front of her nearly made her cry._

_"Eh, you alright, Teef?" Barrett asked, shielding her. A scream caught in her throat as a bullet hit his arm, his normal, _whole_ arm. Flashes of fear wound around her, snapping against her skin like harsh wire. What if Barrett lost his other arm? Then what? How would he hold Marlene?_

"_Spike!" he called out, and on the other side, amidst a sea of pooling blood and an island of linked together corpses, Cloud killed another, and looked over. His feet froze for only a second, tripping over the broken arm of a corpse, before he ran over with frightening speed to where they were._

_Barrett was hit again…and again. He hid his chest and face as much as he could behind his gun arm, protecting the vital areas even as some young fool emptied his magazine on the large blockade that was her friend. Barrett was…_

_Barrett is…_

_Cloud cleaved the man in two before the thought could be finished, the gun still firing, the finger holding it without being connected. Cloud kicked it away, the bullet rounds stopped. Barrett fell next, and she couldn't stop. She tried, but couldn't. It was too much, too much, too graphic, too many memories, too much pain._

_Her legs were on fire, and the blissful numbing was not a good thing. She hated that she was conscious enough to know she wanted the pain. That it meant that she might be okay. Barrett gurgled – no, that was another solider that fell. Bursts of bullets…_

_Cloud was a demon._

_No…he was an angel. She could practically see them, pristine, angelic wings, stained at the tips with dark blood. It didn't matter. He was going to save them because she couldn't stand, because Barrett was dying, because Aerith and Zack had…yes. They had managed to get outside._

_He was going to save them because she was _not_ ready to die._

_The brutality was horrific, but she didn't care. No, this was not the old Cloud, but this Cloud was also keeping the promise from that night of their childhood. This Cloud changed, too much, but she could learn to like this one. The old one was under there somewhere-_

_A spray of blood, not hers, not Barrett's, splashed across her face and onto the wall behind her. It was in her mouth, in her eyes and nose. She gagged, and then, silence. No, heavy breathing. Who now? She spit and wiped her eyes, the red smearing everywhere – get off, get off!_

"_Come _on_!" The glow was strong, the testimony to Cloud's materia. In a thought, she knew she was safe, that Cloud would save them. That he _was_ saving him._

I'll protect him next time_, she swore._

_Time passed, Barrett lived. He was going to be okay, and by the time the eighth bullet hit the carpet, and Cloud moved on to her…she felt pity._

_Cloud's face was drenched in worry, sweat beaded at the sides, blood coated the tips of his hair and stained the roots. He was breathing heavily, his hands shook and when he activated the materia to heal her, the green glow enveloping her legs, he held his breath._

_A hitch due to pain._

_Tifa said nothing, waiting, even as pain enveloped her as the bullet forced its way out. She bit down, not on lip, or cheek. She ground her teeth together so as to not distract him, and when her legs were completely healed – why had he done that? She stood. She wobbled, ghost hands of pain running along her system._

_Cloud remained where he was, and she had to remind herself that they had been fighting their way out for nearly an hour, and he had taken point. He had killed the most, killed 3rds and 2nds and soldiers, and then had to heal them – had to bring Barrett back from the dead._

_She grabbed his arm, much like how Aerith had done to Zack._

_Cloud shook her off. She backed up, hurt more by the action than the bullets that now sat harmlessly in a bloody pool on the coated rug._

_"Get Barrett," he ordered, and she complied. Cloud stood and shook himself, swallowing his increased breathing, forcing it to become calm._

_It was horrifying, how easily he could make it seem like he was perfectly alright. He was no God, she knew that. He seemed to think of himself as one. A mighty 1st, but he was still, deep down, the little boy in Nibelheim._

"_Come on, Barrett." She grabbed his arm – his real one – and with her remaining strength she pulled him up. Thankfully he helped, standing on his feet before swaying dangerously._

"_Can' say," he slurred, "tha' I like materia all tha' much, but damn."_

_Tifa had to agree. Cloud walked out of the broken window, onto the street. Tifa followed, haplessly looking for the other two they had come with._

_No, wait – Red! She spun, and her eyes landed on the creature. He was limping behind her, not bleeding._

_"You didn't watch your back," he explained. "I couldn't let someone shoot it."_

_Barrett continued on, muttering something, following Cloud to where Aerith and Zack were. Tifa couldn't move. She nodded, not able to even think of a 'thank you' and not able to comprehend at how close she had been to dying a moment ago._

_Not able to think about how much she owed Red._

_He walked past her, saying nothing about the obvious limp, or how the whimpers were high and clear even to her ringing ears – when had that started? She followed, not able to say a thing. Not able to think of the words._

_Thank you was not enough._

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry for the late update! Thank you (eternally) to my beta, to my reviewers - even those who simply favourite/alert this story. I hope you enjoy it - they are FINALLY out, eh? I hope everyone did/is enjoyed/ing their march break! Read and Review!


	10. Chapter 10

Cross Zone

Chapter Ten

* * *

><p>Things were getting tense.<p>

Their agitation was clearly discernable simply based on their movements.

Tifa had taken to pacing, and when she had the space, punching the air. Aerith had, somewhere, acquired a page of paper and had been scratching on it. Whenever her eyes wandered to the still unconscious friend, her hand would press against the paper and scratches would echo through the room.

The blond man, Cloud, had a map strewn in front of him on the other bed, with a marker in hand.

"What are yer doing?" the large man huffed, and from where Red sat on the floor he deduced that the stagnant events of the past day were getting to him.

Red himself was simply glad to be allowed to sleep on a bed – even if it was occupied by an unconscious man named 'Zack'. He felt bad, if only for the child – Aerith. Use their names; it inspires companionship and thus kinship. Aerith, then, she seemed to be worrying the most.

Healing materia did not work on unconscious patients.

It was too risky to give their patient the nifty potion _Phoenix Down_. However, in the end that potion was nothing more than a liquid smelling salt. His people were not accustomed to the manufactured drinks Shinra shipped out.

He was glad about that.

He also doubted that his companions knew what it truly was. Did it restore energy? Perhaps. But not in the way that they thought. Highly caffeinated with an unknown concoction consisting, but not limited to, ammonium carbonate. All it really did was give you a short adrenaline rush.

Sometimes he loathed Grandfather for beating seemingly useless information into his head. No, he shook himself – any creature, _any_, required knowledge. Any sort of knowledge was always useful – it gave one foresight.

If his father had '_foresight'_ perhaps he might have—

"Red?"

He was dozing, and it took him a moment to respond to the name he allowed them to call him. Raising his head, he looked over.

"Yes?" Aerith's brows pinched – what did that expression mean again? She was looking at the dark-cloud gray on her paper. "Do you need anything?" She was still recovering from whatever exhaustive state she had been in. As much as he wanted to…he had no information as to what might have caused it. _There_, he thought, _the reason for knowledge as a pursuit. _Not knowing was worse than any truth. At least when the truth was apparent but shrouded.

His tail flicked to the side in irritation.

They wouldn't know what it meant. He shouldn't blame them, either, no matter the dark desires that rested at the bottom of his heart. They were not his kind, and therefore they could not empathize. _She_ was gone, as were his parents…

He was the only one left.

"How's your leg?"

"Fine." She had healed it without a word, even a complaint from him. "I thank you."

She smiled, an expression he had seen often enough to recognize, but it was strained. He figured it was because of the man whose feet he was lying next to.

"You're welcome."

"You should get some fresh air." The lady that ran the apothecary at home always suggested that to him. He never understood why – was it a human remedy? He was outside on a regular basis, but that made him feel no better.

Looking to the side, where the sun poured in from the windows – _don't look there, the dust particles in the air will remind you that you need to sneeze._

"Can you go with me?" She pulled one lip up, her brows crinkled near the centre and lifted. He did not know the expression – he had seen it before, of course, but no one told him what it meant.

She was not nervous, there was no sweat, nor was she frightened, nor in a lustful frenzy.

He did not have an inkling what feeling she was experiencing. Nodding, he thought back to his home. His grandfather was usually 'cheerful' or 'happy'. He could relate to those. Even 'worry' peeked in, and it was an emotion both he and his grandfather shared.

Standing he leaned down on his front paws and stretched, before switching his balance and stretching out his back legs. "Where do you wish to go?"

"Tifa," Aerith held a finger out to him. Ah, he knew this one – _wait a moment_. Or he hoped, because if it signified something else then he was at a loss. Those at home were old fashioned, and even they forgot that he couldn't easily match up expressions and gestures with meanings.

They were human. He was not. Nothing could change their species difference.

"Yeah?" The girl's fists were up, but she paused in action.

"Red and I are going to go out," Aerith hesitated, her fingers curling slightly, before she quickly placed closed fists into the pockets of the rough blue pants she wore.

What had they called them again? No one back home wore that material…ah, yes – _jeans_.

"Where?" Tifa continued the conversation as Red tensed and relaxed the muscles in his recently healed leg. It was so odd that such a good job was done on it – usually he would still feel a bit of ache after a run in with materia, no matter its quality.

"I want to go to my church – the flowers…" Aerith trailed off, biting her lip. Red jumped off the bed. The sound of rough tearing made him wince, and lo and behold, his claws left deep trenches in the already scratched wood. Hopefully no one would notice – Grandfather had to place plenty of carpets to hide the years abuse.

"I'm not sure it's safe," Tifa began to argue. Red wanted to jump in at his healer's defence, as even he could see the uselessness in sitting and worrying about the state of the dark haired man – _Zack_. His name was Zack, don't forget it otherwise it will create conflict when he wakes up.

"Let her go," Cloud interrupted. Tifa clammed up – what a funny way to say she stopped talking – "Aerith, be careful."

The silence didn't bode well, it made him queasy.

"Yes," Tifa agreed with a smile – it looked painful to her. "And tell Barrett to come back to the room. He's too noticeable to go out." Tifa laughed. "He said he has a friend or so who can get us communication devices. I don't know, but he should be somewhere in the building – he promised."

"I will if I see him."

"Oh, we should probably do something to make you look less like…you."

"But what about Red?"

Tifa looked down at him – _always, always down at him_. She chuckled a little, "there isn't much we can do with Red. Oh and-"

"Tifa, I grew up here, not you."

Red couldn't be certain, however it almost sounded as if Aerith had taken command – dominated. He hoped that once Zack woke up the strained relationships would ease up – trying to determine their thoughts through their actions and emotions was rather difficult when the people around him were so keen on keeping their emotions hidden from_each other_ not to mention him.

They were silent again. "Right. Sorry – I'm just really—"

"I've always wanted to go to a spa," Aerith interjected. "I think we could use one – _oh._ Why don't we go now?"

Tifa's expression dropped – it had been…repentance. Or 'apologetic'. "I thought you were going to your Church…"

Aerith shook her head. "We can do that later. Come on," Aerith grabbed the long sleeved blue shirt of Tifa's and dragged her, nodding to him to follow. He hoped that was what it meant. "Cloud, we're going out! Keep an eye on Zack for us!" Opening the door, she wrestled Tifa out of the door, who ended up hysterically laughing when the softer of the two managed it.

"He won't leave," Cloud stared at the retreating backs of the girls, laughter – no… _giggling_ floated down the hall. Red turned to Cloud, whose line of sight had not yet changed.

"I will protect them," he promised to the blond. Cloud, startled, looked down and over before nodding.

"Thank you." His face paled a few shades before his cheeks turned pink. What was that? "Don't tell Tifa I said that, or that you said that. She's strong enough on her own."

Red nodded in agreement, and as he walked out of the room, noting that Cloud stood up behind him – _probably going to close the door _– Red couldn't help but feel like he will never understand any of them.

* * *

><p>There was, in reality, not that much danger in the slums. The army was hardly welcome, and so when they came for their patrol of the area they tended to leave quickly. Just to be safe, however, Tifa pressed herself against the door. Aerith was behind her, tapping quickly on her arched back.<p>

"Calm down!" Tifa giggled, swatting at Aerith's insistent hands. "We don't want to be caught."

"You've had a shower," Aerith reminded her "My scalp is crawling!"

Peeking her head out, Tifa scanned the busy streets of Sector Two. No arms, no weapons, just a bunch of people walking to and fro. Lovely Sector Two was the place where families vied to live due to its overall boring – ahem, _safe_ – atmosphere. "It's not my fault that you wouldn't take a shower."

"Barrett used _all_ of the hot water!"

Tifa shrugged. "There wasn't much to begin with." Straightening up, Tifa opened the door, allowing Aerith, and then Red to walk out. When Aerith spun back to face her, Tifa had to admit that her friend looked odd without anything gyrating with her. Kicking the door shut, she forced a smile on – it should become easier later on – and nodded to the direction of the spa house that she had noted when she had gone clothes shopping with Cloud.

No, she shook her head. Shouldn't think about him now. Aerith needed out, and they were going to have a good time while they were at it! Nodding, feeling slightly stupid at how hard it was for her to have fun, she looked over to where Aerith plucked at the bun that held her long hair up close to the base of her skull.

"It's going to fall out if you keep doing that," Tifa advised. Aerith's hands froze, before she placed her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow.

"Like you're one to talk!" Aerith was trying, but then again, they both were. At least Aerith was forcing herself because – Tifa assumed – Zack was still sleeping off his injuries.

"Me?" Keep the conversation going. _It's not fair if only one of us is talking._

"Your pony-tails," Aerith reached out and grabbed one of the parted locks of Tifa's hair. "You keep tugging at them."

"I do?" Tifa hadn't noticed, perhaps it was some subconscious habit. Her hair usually was kept back… "I didn't notice."

"She does, doesn't she?" Aerith leaned back, letting go of Tifa's hair, to talk to the third member of their party. Red – damn, Tifa! Stop forgetting that he's there! He saved your life!

"I have noted that," the creature nodded, keeping close to Aerith's legs while looking strangely at the passing people – perhaps it was wariness? "Where is it that we're going?"

"A spa?" Aerith asked. "I haven't been to one myself – my mom has though."

"What…does one do at a spa?" He mispronounced it, but it was entertaining enough. Tifa laughed, Aerith held her fingers to her face and held back a giggle.

"We get pretty!" Aerith chirped, and when Red nodded and looked ahead, Tifa noted how her expression fell. It was alarming, because the action made her look older – and it made Tifa realize their age difference.

It… was shocking…to see an expression Tifa saw in the mirror every morning on someone else.

In a moment, her face lifted, the expression gone like an evanescent dream. Now, now, Tifa, this is supposed to be fun. Rubbing a finger along an eyebrow in order to force concentration, she faked a smile to rival Aerith's.

It was good to pretend that everything was okay – _and that her friends weren't dead, that AVALANCHE didn't cause the plate to fall, that her surviving friends almost died, that Shinra still won, that Aerith had lost something, that Cloud was a killer _– because today was a day to make everything seem better.

"We're still going to the church later?" She asked Aerith.

"I hope we can."

Tifa's footsteps slowed at Aerith's shrug. They had reached the 'spa' – a small little hovel that advertised: _Massage! Pedicure! Manicure! _The glowing neon sign blinked with age in front of dusty crooked blinds.

Aerith eyed the door, before resolutely opening the worn handle.

Laughing once at her reluctance, Tifa herself walked into the run-down establishment of _Yui's Spa Hut._

* * *

><p>When they burst back into the room, Aerith couldn't stop from giggling. The small inn had seemed like such a maze – ha! It was a <em>maze<em> – wait, why was that funny again?

"I'm afraid I still have to protest," Red sounded so unsure of himself – she felt like laughing until she hit the floor, but he was such a sweetheart! Wait, no, can't, can't, _absolutely cannot_ until Barrett and Cloud see – oh, Zack would _die_.

But not really.

"It really is the 'in'," she used both hands to air-quote the word, "colour right now. I swear."

Tifa, was biting down hard on her lip – _finally_. A real, honest laugh! If Zack woke up right then and there her day would have been made! First, she pulls a prank – _Aerith the prankster!_ That had a catchy ring to it. Zack would definitely agree.

Maybe she might even get Cloud to laugh – now _that_ was a goal! He really needed to lighten up, they all did—_He dropped, body riddled with bullets— _she shook her head violently. The cheer sucked up in a moment – why, why, _why_ did that have to be the only way to get out?

A cold thought hit her, fast like the Midgar train and twice as hard in her gut.

Tifa had come to save them. Cloud and Barrett were right behind her. If Zack and she had just been patient…

No, best not to think of those things, she had just pulled off a pretty funny – and perfectly harmless – prank. She should be proud.

Or was it wrong to try to be happy? She didn't know what to do – did she spend the rest of her life atoning, did she try to move on, to forget? Once more – for the millionth time that day – she wished Zack would just _wake up_. That way she could trick herself into believing everything that had happened had been necessary—

None of it would have happened if she had not been caught.

Feeling lightheaded, she walked over until her thighs hit Zack's bed and she twisted and sat on it. Smiling weakly, she watched the scene unfold before her like it was through a window and across a street. Tifa was happy; that was a good thing. She deserved to be. Barrett was just catching onto the joke, and was laughing enough to snort consecutively until he made a tune out of it.

Cloud…noted it, and while he did not laugh, or even smile, he did look lighter.

That was good.

Zack was still asleep.

She felt hollow all of a sudden. Tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, she turned over to look at him. His face was healing – slowly, as she couldn't heal him with her materia while he was asleep (not properly, anyway). His arm had been set and she had spent all of the morning forcefully healing it to the best of her abilities – Zack would have to deal with his vanity later.

_I want you to wake up, Zack._

No.

_I want you to help me feel better._

It was such a relief, now that she thought back to it, to have him try to comfort _her_ to try and fix _her_. He was the one who tried to make her _feel_ better. It was nice.

Cloud on the other hand…she looked up to him. He worked too hard – he was young wasn't he? Younger than she, yet so much older. She didn't know how to approach him, but she did know that he carried too much – it must be heavy.

Frowning, even as the banter beside her continued as if in another world, she got up, and, quickly, rushed over to the next bed and jumped on. Her momentum helped her body crash into his, to get his immediate attention – come on, Cloud! He was a young man, he should be more like Zack…or…perhaps the Zack that was Zack before the plate fell – did that make sense? Didn't matter.

"Hello," she put enunciation on the 'o', dipping her voice and smiling at her own odd accent.

Cloud blinked at her, as if he didn't know what she was doing or how to respond. It was painful, and she hoped that whatever her half-formed plan was that it wouldn't hurt him. She prayed for it to help.

"Aerith?"

"You're too old, you know that, Cloud?"

He was quiet for a moment, his stunning, beautiful glowing eyes were locked on hers, their faces close even as their shoulders touched. "Am I." Not a question. "Then you're too young."

Wryly, she smiled, looking off the side where a commercial and mass-produced picture of a flowering yellow rose was framed on the wall. What to say now, hmm? "There is still some time left before we should get to bed," she started to suggest.

"So?" His brows pinched, but his gaze never left her face. The attention was flattering, and it made something twist in her gut. Her face felt warm too.

"I think you should grow younger."

"It doesn't work like that," he looked so haunted, and the more she made him talk the more she could see it. It was downright frightening. Perhaps her plan wasn't going to work? She didn't really have a plan to begin with, really. Stupid, Aerith, stupid! You go out and try to make people feel better but they just see right through you and you make them feel worse.

That's not how you go about making someone feel better.

"They say Sector Two has an aquarium," she started, picking pieces of information from the top of her head. "Have you ever been to it?"

His brows furrowed and he finally broke her gaze. He was frowning, but it looked like he was contemplating something. She let him be for the moment, looking to the others for a moment. With surprise, she realized how tuned out to them she was.

"…_Please_ get it off!" Red's voice was higher, filled with whines even as he relentlessly tried to bite at his long claws. "You tricked me!"

"It's a prank," Barrett drawled, pure amusement on his face "You don't get an apology, you get even."

"Then how does shredded clothing sound? Is _that_ a good pray-enka?" Red stopped and his head twitched. "It tastes horrible!"

Tifa was laughing. Bending down she sympathetically rubbed Red's head, being careful of the tribal ornaments in his fur. "I think pink nail-polish suits you. Don't let what Barrett says scare you."

"I am not so naïve as to believe that _you_ are not lying to me!"

Tifa's face grew fond. Placing a hand to her mouth she stifled the 'aww' that came from her lips. Looking up at Zack, she frowned, before her gaze rotated over to Cloud's bed. The way that the smile fell from Tifa's lips literally had Aerith nudge herself off the bed and stand to attention.

She had done it again.

She couldn't make either of them happy, because both of them needed to be. The selfish part of her yelled at Tifa, but she squashed it. So what if she had already spent time with Tifa today? Wasn't Cloud's happiness worth the same as Tifa's?

She was so confused. Putting on a tight smile, her arms unconsciously curling in to protect herself, Aerith awkwardly shuffled on her feet. What to do, what to do – she really _did_ want to spend time with Cloud, but Tifa was upset now.

Cloud would be hurt by her sudden coldness, and Zack was still hurting in general. Red and Barrett seemed to be the only emotional reliefs in their little family, but in the end she still _didn't know what to do_.

"How about we go to the aquarium?" she suggested at last. Cloud responded better when he was alone with someone, but at least this way he could do something that would make him forget his worries for even just a little while.

They weren't soldiers – _none_ of them were. Cloud wasn't, not anymore. They deserved normal happiness, even if two – and most likely three – of them didn't believe they deserved it.

She honestly wasn't certain if she deserved it either.

It wasn't a matter of _fixing _them. People weren't pottery that would be glued together with a few cracks and then be done with it. They were more like clay that started out as one thing and ended up as another…only they'd ended up in a shape they didn't like and wanted to be better.

She just wanted them to smile.

"An aquarium?" Barrett was the first to speak, "Marlene loves those aquarium's – I took her fer her birthday once."

Aerith smiled at the story, even if she suddenly felt like she was on trial. Tilting her head to the far side, rubbing her neck to relieve the nervousness at suddenly having everyone's attention, she cleared her throat. "I've always wanted to go!" Never, she never even thought about it before. After all, she had lived in the slums her whole life – even if she hadn't the money, she could have gone if she wanted to.

Saving, saving, more saving, and then go!

She just never cared. For fish or for the 'adventure'. It could be due to her nightmares, of a bright light in an otherwise dark room with nowhere to go as she was poked and prodded…

Breaking out of her memory with a start, she cleared her throat – again. Was she getting sick? "So… since we're here…" she didn't want to admit this, "and it may be a long time before we come back…we should enjoy it while we can."

"Eh!" Barrett again, but Cloud's eyes were on her – was that why it was so hot? "We've gotta save the Planet! We don't have time to go to aquariums!"

"Why not?" The Lifestream was more stable than he thought. "We only live once."

Tifa's dark eyes were steady, and it was hard to keep her gaze. Swallowing, Aerith's feet shuffled but she refused to break the eye contact.

What had this turned into?

The eyes she stared at softened, and Tifa looked away with a fond smile. "That's true. We should." The martial artist's support was enough to make Barrett blanch and Red growl – though that could be just because he was trying to eat the nail polish off of his claws.

Lastly – as Barrett wanted to go, he was just too wrapped up in his ego to realize it (his first thought was his time with _Marlene_, so it wasn't as if he was against it) – she turned to Cloud.

"You might get younger?"

The corner of Cloud's mouth rose, just slightly, and Aerith felt like dragging her fist close to her with a shout of success – she held it back by curling her toes until they crossed over each other.

"You might too," he pointed out, but his hands were folding the map up.

Aerith shrugged, and upon remembering the pockets in her loose jean-things – they were so strange, she really didn't know what to call them – she shoved the map inside. The elastic scrunchy hem was annoying; it kept the fabric close to her ankles. Pocketing her hands as she used one foot to itch the scratch, she shrugged and smiled sheepishly, "there's always too much time to grow up."

Cloud exhaled – but it was terse and she took it as a laugh.

* * *

><p>Red heaved a sigh. The others were out, having finally decided to go to the famed aquarium – somewhere he himself had been somewhat interested in going, to see these 'underwater creatures' of apparent varying sizes and colours.<p>

Only…'pets weren't allowed'.

When they tried to explain it to him, he felt at a loss. Naturally he understood that they were of different species, but he also understood the connotations of a 'pet'. He was not a _pet_. A pet was something that you took care of…which they did. He supposed accepting their food was— he growled.

Pet's were owned. He was not, nor ever would be owned.

Except perhaps when that greasy scientist captured him.

But that was kidnapping. Or did that word only work with the human species? If it did he rightly resented it.

His only consolation was that the black haired man – Zack, his name was Zack – had not gone either. However he was sleeping off the last bit of a fever – something he had been able to discern, though he wondered if the rest of the group was aware of it.

He wished the sun would stretch into the room, for the shadows to lengthen like they did back home. He had not seen the sun in months, and he felt like he was wilting without it – _how_ these people could live in darkness was beyond him. Artificial light didn't do the sun its justice.

He had to look at the clock, which blared hatefully in a off-green, neon colour. It was the only source of light in the room.

The body on the other bed began to toss, and noises of extreme protest began even as the fear became heavy in the room. It set him on edge, even though he understood that it was a 'nightmare'. He had them on occasion, everyone had them.

Not like this though. He wasn't sure if he should wake him up, but his muscles did tense. His grandfather told him something along the lines that a person in a vivid nightmare was violent, that they should just sleep through it. The others had not said if the man had any training or not, and he wasn't about to find out.

He would just let the man sleep it out; he wouldn't know what to do about it anyway.

* * *

><p>"They're so <em>big<em>!" Aerith couldn't believe it, staring in awe at the main attraction of the museum: a whale from Wutain waters. It swam in the large tank slowly, clear for all to see in the large circular room. "Have you ever seen anything like it?"

"I can't believe they put a whale in…" Tifa trailed off, more stunned at the sight than awed.

Cloud was silent, staring at the whale stonily. It worried Aerith, who frowned. Was it the whale? Was it that she pressured him into going?

"Marlene would've loved this!" Barrett laughed. "They had camera's in tha' gift shop right? I'll go and get one." Barrett clapped Cloud on the shoulder, before walking off at an uplifted pace. Aerith smiled at the sight – he really was quite the father…

"Let's go."

"Why?" Aerith frowned, but Tifa's expression remained downcast and Cloud's stony.

"Aeirth," Tifa began, not quite able to meet her gaze, "in a way, that almost happened to you."

The realization that followed felt like a blow of freezing cold water. "Oh," she managed quietly. "I guess, it sort of happened to all of us?"

Cloud's jaw tensed.

* * *

><p>Zack gasped and sat straight up, the sweat that leaked from his body infected the air. It set Red on edge, but he was too wary to bring attention to himself. Personally, Red wouldn't want anyone to coddle him if he had a night terror, he would want to deal with it himself.<p>

So…he would let this Zack deal with it himself. Once he had calmed down and collected himself, perhaps Red would tell him where the others went. Perhaps this Zack might have an idea as to how Red could get in. They said he could think 'on his feet'.

When Zack kicked the blankets off of himself, his breathing increased. He rubbed his hands together, creating friction, and then, something that fully brought Red's attention back…

Zack ran a hand through his hair…only his hands were shaking violently and his breathing was erratic and the tempo was off. When he went to stand up, he teetered and fell face first. Alarmed, Red stood, a growl rising from his throat. Jumping off the bed and onto the floor, Red trotted over.

He wasn't sure what to do, but watching as the black haired man crawled back into a crouch and then slammed his forehead back into the floor, Red knew it had to be_something_. Hesitantly walking forward, keeping his claws as high up as possible he tried to get close.

"NO!" Zack slammed a palm into the floor, before the word was repeated again and again, bordering on manic. "No, no, no, no," he curled in around his head.

This man…Red realized as he backed away, was _not_ prepared for a talking animal. If anything, it would probably send him into some sort of violent fit – he didn't realize Red was coming, and if Red suddenly gained his attention...

Zack would hurt himself. He was sure of it. The scents that secreted into the air were too many at once. All that was certain was that something was wrong, very, very wrong. The fit escalated, Zack slammed a fist into the ground with each 'no', before he forcefully loosened his hand and tangled it in his hair, pulling until Red heard small tears.

The broken sobs stopped, and then, the heaving of breaths began. Zack slowly uncurled from the tight ball he had constrained his body into, before he suddenly went rigid. In the next moment, he scuttled to the bathroom just in front of him.

The dry heaving lasted a moment, and Red winced as Zack vomited. The whimpers gave way into incoherent whispers, though by the scathing tone the topic couldn't have been a light-hearted one.

Red's ears flattened against his skull, the growl in his throat held back.

Zack was not in the right frame of mind. Red wasn't confident at all in being able to pull him out of it without some sort of scuffle, and in the state Zack was in…one of them was going to be hurt. Maybe both.

Peeking his head in, he watched as Zack threw himself off of the toilet and blinked unseeingly at the ceiling. His eyes wandered, and Red knew just by watching that the boy's fever had spiked once more. His eyes were puffy and his pores were huge, the cheeks spotted scarlet and his eyes full of ugly red veins. There was a puss that surrounded his eyelashes; Red doubted Zack could see clearly at all.

He began to stare at his hands, blinking at them uncomprehendingly before he began to rub them on the sides of his pants. He went to stare at them again, then repeated the process, only faster, looking off to the side in desperation.

Finally, he forced himself to his feet, swaying dangerously. He slapped the knobs on the sink he leaned heavily against. With a struggle, he turned the water on, and waited until steam began to rise in a rapid stream.

Then he shoved both hands underneath. They turned red, shockingly so, and Zack continued to rub at them. "Come out, come out," he muttered, his fever spiking and he faltered, falling heavily into the wall and then onto the floor.

The water from the tap was the only noise in the room.

* * *

><p>Barrett ended up being the reason that they stayed until the closing time of 10pm. He had a valid point, as Marlene would surely be excited for the souvenirs her father brought her when they met up again. It was sweet, but Tifa couldn't help but feel like they should never have come at all.<p>

Somewhere, she felt like it was her fault. If she just hadn't opened her mouth at the similarity…if she had just _shut up_ then Aerith would have been able to go on blissfully unaware and Cloud might actually have had a good time. It was supposed to be a date for them, right?

It was probably her own vindictiveness that did it. Aerith…had just been trying to get Cloud to lighten up, and here Tifa was downing Aerith's mood.

She had to make it up to her…it was just...that whale. All alone, swimming in a tank even though its intelligence belied its captivity. She had three thoughts seeing it. The first was Aerith, subjugated to a scientist's whims. The second was Red, captured in that tank.

The third was Cloud, not so much due to her imagination, but due to the haunted look he got. In fact, he almost looked sick.

It had been…sweet of him, in that sense, to make sure that Aerith didn't see it.

"We'll leave in the morning," Cloud muttered as they excited the building. "We've stayed too long."

"I'm sorry," Aerith breathed, looking to the floor and wringing her hands. "I didn't mean—"

"It was…fun." Cloud hesitated, before squeezing her arm a little. "Perhaps next time we will go somewhere better."

Aerith looked up and smiled ruefully. "I'll think it through next time."

_Next time_.

Tifa sighed.

* * *

><p>Zack's breathing slowly evened out, Red noted with relief, as Zack leaned against the open door of bathroom. Guilt wracked at him, but logically he knew there was nothing he could have really done. No…the guilt came from watching that in the first place. He had no right – none at all.<p>

He doubted the others knew.

"Don't," the weak voice made Red crouch and tense, "don't tell them."

Don't tell them? Well…yes. It was too private for Red to be blabbing to the others. "Does it happen often?" He kept his voice low, still too numb from what he had seen to really worry about tact.

Zack closed his eyes, and breathed deeply through his nose. "I don't know," he answered, his voice rough and unbelievably hoarse. "I guess."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Hey guys! Happy Easter! Thank you so much, FullMentalPanic for beta-ing (I take 99% of your suggestions, in case you've wondered. I think I just haven't taken ONE) Anyway, here's chapter 10! I've started on chapter 11 and please please please review! XD_


	11. Chapter 11

**Thank you to my wonderful beta FullMentalPanic for editing not only this story but my original one too. Honestly I would have probably gotten frustrated with this story long ago if it wasn't for you keeping me on track! ^_^**

Part Two

Chapter Eleven

* * *

><p>"Everyone's worried here except for you! Don't you understand how… how <em>scary<em> that is?" How had it turned out like this? Why were they arguing? Everyone was getting along just_fine_ until they reached Kalm.

"No, _you_ don't understand, Aerith!" Zack stomped a step closer, and she unconsciously curled away. She didn't mean to, it was just … she had never seen him so angry. No… frustrated. He was frustrated. And being incredibly stubborn and _exceedingly_ rude.

"Really?" Why were they yelling? Why was she… _when_ had she gotten... She couldn't think right. She could barely even think back to how it had gotten to the point that it did. "Tell me, okay? _Tell me then_." She closed the small distance between them and shoved him. "If I don't understand then _tell_ me! What's so hard about that?"

He retreated backwards with her shove, until his back hit the dark wall of the building in front of her. He shifted his head to the side. "You act like a funeral procession. Or something." He chuckled weakly. "After leaving Midgar everything is business, business," he rolled his hand at the wrist, "business."

"What's so wrong about that?"

"What _business_ are you going to?"

Aerith didn't know what to say to that. What business? She hadn't really thought about it before, or at least she had never pondered about what they were going to even _do_ next.

"That's what's wrong with you," she whispered, unsure of what she was saying exactly but knowing that whatever was bothering Zack had to have been on his chest for awhile.

"No."

What? Aerith's eyes fluttered with the word. That wasn't fair!

"No?" Her teeth were set on edge, though she couldn't really comprehend why. It just happened and a warm feeling began to spread into her chest and then make her sick. She wanted to scream. No… she wanted to scream at _him._.

She was angry.

Zack looked to the side, before rolling his eyes to the ground and gripping both hands to the back of his head, threading his fingers into his hair. "Tell me, Aerith, what your mother's like."

"My mother?"

"No, wait, don't answer that." He let go of his hair, and looked up at her. She saw only a small corner of his face, where the streetlight managed to peek over the building and into the alley they were in.

"Zack—"

"What's your home, like?"

The pit of anger sunk deep into her stomach until she felt like she was about to vomit. _Oh_. This had something to do with that… with Sector Seven…

She forgot.

She actually _forgot_. It had been what, two, maybe three now, weeks since it fell? Why hadn't she thought… why… Well admittedly when he first told her they were in the crisis and then that guard… and then he didn't wake up for two days… and then she had just been so happy he was awake…

In their hectic escape from Midgar she just…

Forgot.

She forgot what he'd lost. She _forgot_ and… Zack… had been following them. He had just been following them when he had no reason, absolutely _no_ reason to join them. He helped her… she sort of just assumed…

She couldn't say anything. She felt like she would choke on her own words and die from her own stupidity. Here she prized herself on being compassionate, and yet she had ended up being the cruelest of them all.

"What's your home like?" he repeated.

"Fine," she croaked. Something stung behind her eyes, she used her forefinger to pad underneath her lid.

"Mine's," his voice was so quiet, and yet it was unbearably loud at the same time. He didn't need to say it, she knew— "obliterated."

She winced. How… how could he be so callous? How could he just _stand_ there and talk about thousands of lives that were lost…

No.

She was the one sugar-coating it. Zack always used words like _murdered_ and _slaughtered_ and _obliterated. _She was the one that made herself feel better by saying their lives were lost, that they had been taken too soon …

That didn't make her a coward, did it?

"I know."

"Barret has his daughter, or at least I hope it's his daughter," Zack shoved his hands into pockets that were a size too large due to their overestimating. "Cloud has Tifa, Tifa has Cloud."

Aerith bit her lip at how casual he made them sound.

She tried _not_ to be jealous. She had promised herself at the beginning of their run towards Kalm that she wouldn't come between them… but that didn't mean Aerith wasn't making a sacrifice herself. Just help Cloud. It was hard when what he needed was the very thing she promised not to…

No. Zack. Zack was in front of her, Zack was the one with the problems. Just because they had been drifting apart in recent days, or weeks or whatever it was, didn't mean anything. Zack was the one hurting, Zack was the one that needed help.

She was getting tired of having Zack coddle her. She'd never realized how protecting people could seem like a massive brush-off.

So that was what was bothering Cloud.

That wasn't important at the moment.

"Red has his home. You have your mother," he paused, "and your home."

She shook her head. He needed to stop thinking like that! "We all have each other."

"I didn't grow up in Midgar." He stepped in towards the back of the building, the light on his face eaten away by shadow. "Did you know that?"

She didn't know what the right thing to say was. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what he _wanted_. "No."

"It was a tiny town named Gongaga. Backwater place. I hated it. Well," he sighed noisily. "I didn't hate it.

"It's gone too."

Somehow she managed, "how?"

He licked his lips, and leaned his head against the building. "The reactor blew up."

Who died? She wanted desperately to ask that question, but she didn't dare. She _couldn't_. Asking would be an horrible encroachment on his personal space. He was goading her. He wanted to get mad at someone, and she was right there. She was there and she was to blame. She made him kill, she nearly got him killed, and now he needed someone to lash out at.

Cloud dealt with the monsters first. Everyone else was backup. The point was to make Zack not strain himself…

But instead they made him idle.

"And who died?" She felt like the most horrible person in the world, but if Zack needed someone to hate, then it should be her. She was the only one he opened up to about this, as far as she was aware.

"Aerith," his tone was clipped; she prepared herself for the yelling, "You're really annoying."

Her eyes opened – had she unconsciously closed them? "I'm sorry?"

"You're doing it again." She couldn't see his face. "It's annoying."

"Doing what?"

"Making yourself a martyr," he pushed himself away from the wall with his shoulder. "You don't need to take the brunt of everyone's—"

"Maybe I do!" Oh, _Gaia_. Her breathing was heavy, in through her nose and out. She had just yelled, screamed. Why? She didn't feel all too angry before, in fact … why? _Why_? What was so wrong about what he said there and now? Why… why did she feel like—

She ran up to him and pushed him back into the wall. He fell into it, and she dimly saw his surprise. "Maybe if people," she slapped his arms, she just… she wanted to hurt him. She… she didn't know what she wanted to do.

"Just—"

He grabbed onto her wrist, no, no, _no_!

"Just took care of themselves instead of pretending _everything_ was alright—"

"What right do you have," he leaned towards her face, "to force grief onto me? _All_ of you."

She gritted her teeth. "Then what are you still doing with us?"

He let go of her. Her wrists burned. She wanted to… she didn't know what she wanted to do. Her hands felt useless, and it was only in the silence she realized what it was that she'd blurted out.

"W-wait—"

"Probably best," he dodged her attempt to grab onto his arm, to _keep_ him there. "Take care, I'm sure _everything_ can be fixed if you just try."

His sarcasm hurt. It hurt more than anything. Run. Run after him, Aerith. Run, run, this was supposed to be a date, right? _You screwed it up_. You brought it up. Everything was fine…

No. Everything was horrible. It had started out bad and just gone worse. They had pushed him and pushed him…

Right from the moment that he woke up.

* * *

><p><em>Two Weeks Previous<em>

Enough was enough; it was time for Zack to wake up!

"You're sure?" She looked over to Red as she leaned over Zack's sleeping form.

"He woke up while you were gone," Red confirmed, his head tilted towards the door and settled on his paws. Aerith almost couldn't help but squeal in excitement, except she wouldn't want her patient to get worse.

"Then what?"

Red was quiet for a moment, something that caught Aerith's attention. Curious, she leaned over to look where Red lounged at Zack's feet. She raised an eyebrow as a continuation to the question.

"He woke up, had a slight fever, got a drink and went back to bed."

"Oh," Aerith nodded as she sat down on the bed. Then, as she bit the inside her cheek to keep her laughter at bay, she poked him. Nothing, oh, come on! More determined, Aerith repeated the action, jamming her finger in his cheek. Nothing – okay then. Challenge accepted, Aerith pinched his nose, pulling it up. The strange snort that resulted nearly had her doubling over in laughter. Hold it, hold it – she clasped both of her hands around her nose and mouth and turned rigid as she tried to hold the laughter in.

Breathing her giggles outwards, the laughter turning into a few high-pitched wheezes. Aerith pressed her lips together and reached out with both hands. Placing them on either side of his head, a thought suddenly crossed her mind.

Her cheeks burned. Looking off, shaking herself – really, what was she thinking? As if… though…

He still looked like a foot. "You do."

"Do what?" Red asked from behind her.

"He looks like a foot," Aerith explained, turning her head to look at Red. Red tilted his head before looking down at his paws. Aerith laughed at his bewildered look, picking up a paw he placed it in the line of sight with Zack.

"I fail to see a similarity." He looked so put out, like he really should have been able to make the comparison.

"He does," Aerith disagreed.

"Gee," the groan was surprising – wasn't he supposed to be asleep? Her cheeks burned again, and she looked back to the person whose face her hands held. "Thanks."

Her lips stretched into a thin smile. "Hi," she began awkwardly.

He wasn't quite awake, so instead he blinked blearily up at her instead of commenting on the rather… _odd_ situation she had placed herself in. Oh, come on Aerith! Let go before he makes some sort of snide remark. Let go, let go – go! Awkwardly, she retracted her hands, brushing a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear.

"Morning," she started, not knowing what to do with her hands.

He yawned, and sat up, dragging the thin blanket with him. The creasing fabric pulled her so she stood up. Red let out a low growl but remained where he was. Zack winced when he jostled his arm, and blinked the sleep away from his eyes. He leaned forward, the bags deep and his hair fluffed up here and there.

Red growled again, pushing his body away from Zack.

"You're finally awake!" Aerith clapped her fingers together. She bit her lip as she smiled, and tilted her head in a slight apology. Zack stared at her, the life in his expression reaching the very high calibre of _zombie_.

"What?" He worked his mouth, scratched his face – the slight stubble made him look like one of the homeless musicians who would play songs on their harmonicas back home. "I," he yawned, and only towards the end of it did he use the back of his palm to cover his mouth, "I know you, right?"

"Nice to know I'm so forgettable."

"Something about cake."

She forced her smile into a neutral expression. "No," she mused, "I don't really remember that."

Zack raised a brow at her. "Mm, I clearly remember something about a cake."

"You're mistaken," she quipped.

"Oh," he looked so crestfallen.

She had done something wrong again. What now? Their game had suddenly been yanked from her – what was she supposed to say to that?

"Uh," think of something, "yeah. Oh." Nice.

"New song?"

"I don't understand you."

"I'm _really_ hungry," he wrapped his arms around his stomach, and winced when his wounded shoulder moved. "And hurt. That means you can't be mean to me."

"Like a Drill Sergeant?"

His slight grimace smoothed out, as he thought about it. He snorted. "Sure. Or a butch nurse."

"I'm hardcore," she leaned heavily on her hip and nodded to the air.

Red looked between the two, an ear was twitched up and his head was cocked to the side. Aerith almost felt bad for confusing him so much in such a short period of time.

"Am I missing something?"

Aerith had to keep her lips pressed together to keep from laughing at Red's question. Oh, this wasn't nice. They were bullying Red.

"You can talk," Zack stated stupidly. His attention fully focused on the creature at his feet. "And you're keeping my feet warm."

Red had nothing to say to that. Aerith shook. She couldn't do it! Hold your nose, Aerith, hold it! Pinching her nostrils together, she tried to breathe through her laughter. Air escaped into the chasm, and a massive snort resounded through the room.

Red and Zack broke their '_staredown'_ and turned their attention to her. Zack burst into a fit of girlish giggles.

"Is that a noise humans make often?"

Red was so composed. How did he do it? Aerith couldn't breathe. Oh _Gaia_ she couldn't breathe. She slowly sank to the ground and laughed until she hiccuped and then until she was making hyena shrieks every time she had to take in a breath.

"What," Zack choked. "What is that supposed to be!"

She couldn't see him, oh, why was this so funny? Her eyes were blurred with her tears and her hair was getting dirty on the hardwood. Ha. Okay, calm down, calm down, stop laughing, why is this funny?

"What is goin' on here?"

The small boards she had placed to clog up the laughter broke through at Barrett's appearance. "I'm so—" she gasped to replenish much needed air, "sorry."

"You broke her," Zack accused, but she couldn't tell if it was Barrett of Red that he was talking to.

"I didn'!" Barrett huffed. "She was like tha' already!"

"At least she could breathe before."

"She can't breathe?" Red interjected, his voice growling with panic.

Aerith panted, the laughter slowly subsiding. That felt _wonderful_. She hadn't laughed like that in a while. She blinked the tears away, and smiled to the ceiling.

"Yes," Zack snapped his fingers. "That's right. You can talk."

"I'm glad that the issue has been cleared up," Red replied hesitantly before jumping off the bed.

"You jus' woke up?" Barrett walked further into the room.

Okay, time for the serious business. With a sigh Aerith rolled to her stomach and sat up, brushed off her clothes and stood. Stretching, she looked around.

Zack's face was carefully blank. Aerith frowned, wondering why. He stared at Barrett before his gaze flickered over to Red, and then back.

"I guess," he shrugged.

Barrett's left eyebrow dipped low enough to make the right one look higher. Eventually though, he shook his head and turned to her. "Spike says that once the kid wakes up we'll need to move out."

"I'm twenty-three, actually."

"So?"

"I just thought you should know that I'm _legally_ an adult."

"That don' matter! I say you're a kid, so you're a kid."

"Than you're a geezer," Zack shrugged. "Eh, Old Man?"

Barrett's face darkened, filling with a flush of indignation that couldn't easily be seen. The door behind him opened.

"What's going on here?" Tifa, with light steps, began to circumnavigate around Barrett.

"Zack woke up!" Aerith found, to her embarrassment, that she seemed more excited about the fact than even the patient himself. Her mouth open like a suffocating fish, she leaned back, snapping her jaw shut with a click. Well… what a way to start a conversation.

Tifa cocked her head to the side. "Oh, okay?"

"I probably need to heal him."

"Yeah," Zack tossed a few layers of his covers off, "so I can stop looking like a foot."

It felt slightly strange, or she felt awkward. Perhaps it was because once she healed him she would finally know what he looked like. She felt giddy, too excited for simply healing someone.

"We need to hurry, Aerith," Tifa interjected. Her solemn tone halted Aerith's movements. Tifa… she turned to look at her friend. What was the harm in—

They still had not gotten over last night. Oh, so that was it. Aerith gave her a smile, but it felt tight and unnatural.

"Sure," she nodded. Shinra was after them and she was getting excited over someone's face! How… how _vain_ could she be? Really?

Slightly numb with shock at her own… self-centeredness she stood next to Zack. She gave him a smile similar to the one she gave Tifa, just for reassurance – she needed to instill confidence in him about her abilities…

His stare was heavy, his frown made her toes curl inward and her stomach… she didn't know. She felt like she was being reprimanded and something else all at the same time. "I need to—"

"You're right, I didn't hear it."

What? "I'm sor—"

"That whole conversation that just happened, I really just couldn't hear or anything."

Aerith flushed. She hovered for a moment, trying to determine something to say, something to _reply_ to that. "Um."

"Um."

She lightly flicked the side of his head.

He recoiled, "Oh, please, please! No—"

"Okay, what?" She stomped her foot. "Could you act like you have a normal thought process for _one_ second?"

"I think I fell down a flight of stairs."

"Did you really?" She doubted it, but she made it seem as earnest as possible, going with a hunch. If she just _gave_ him the reaction he was going for, perhaps it would throw him off and she would—

"Oh yes," he nodded. "My temple, here," he placed the pad of a finger near his hairline, "got hit by the rail."

Plan failed.

"Shut up, kid," Barrett huffed. "An' stop bein' a pain in the ass."

Zack shrugged. "Only if you ask nicely."

Nicely, Aerith could do that. "Please?"

It didn't come out the way she wanted. She had expected it to be somewhat sardonic, to match with the atmosphere. Instead it came out as a pitiful whisper. Zack's expression halted beneath the skin, and she realized she had just started to play dirty.

She'd found it; her trump card.

"Fine."

* * *

><p>The desert was dry.<p>

What an obvious statement.

"Angeal," Genesis murmured. "You've heard the locals, right?"

The batty old fools, all huddled up on their hill they named _Cosmo Canyon_. Of course, Angeal disagreed, saying that just because they didn't live in a crevice didn't mean they didn't live in a canyon.

Angeal, sitting to his right and polishing the polish on his weapon, paused. "I have."

"What are we going to do about it? Ignore him?"

Angeal chuckled. "I don't think anyone can."

How… accurate. Even as a walking corpse he still managed to garner the attention of the world, and still people clamoured for even whispers of him. Genesis' arm whipped out, unbidden, and his fist slammed into the cave wall. The firelight flickered along the rock.

"No need to be childish."

"_My soul, corrupted by vengeance, Hath endured torment, to find the end of the journey, In my own salvation._"

"_And your eternal slumber_," Angeal finished. He scratched his brow with the back of his hand, and stood to set his artifact to lean against the cave wall. "LOVELESS, Act IV."

"Whose? Mine? Or his?"

"I suppose I could argue for both."

Genesis turned his head, the firelight warming a spot on his face like a patch of glowing embers. His eyes flickered to the ground, and he looked back out into the dark landscape, his face cast back into darkness. "He deserves nothing."

"Neither do you."

Genesis pressed his fingers against his forehead. "Yet you humour me."

Angeal hesitated, the silence dead save for the snap from the fire. "Indeed. If it can be called that."

Though it was morbid, Genesis did derive a certain amount of satisfaction in prolonging Angeal's supposed gloom. A long time had passed since Genesis had dared to call himself heroic in his actions, but selfishness suited his needs nicely.

Angeal might want to die, but he would have to go through quite the effort to succeed.

Perhaps it was a form of vanity. Hollander had honoured Angeal with the status of perfection. If Angeal dubbed himself horrific enough that his honour refused to allow his very existence, then where exactly did that leave Genesis? Degrading, a monster, and a filthy castaway.

As long as Angeal lived there was some hope.

With a sigh Angeal stood and stretched out his back. "Don't you have a deal to uphold?"

"Kunsel will find the lab she's in, and when he does he'll call me."

"And if Hojo is there?"

The traces of a manic grin grew unbidden on Genesis' face. "Do you even need to ask?"

* * *

><p>"This escape plan sucks." Zack wasn't picky, on certain things, but he felt like he had a right to complain. It could just be the utter unfairness – what an annoying pun on his name, dammit, don't do that! He tried to make it a point to avoid stupid puns. Fair. That's not fair, you're right, Zack, you're fair. It was annoying to say the least.<p>

What took the cake, however, had to be his current predicament.

"Shuddap!" Barrett.

He was stuck with Barrett in this wonderful escape plan. The two had been roped together because he was still incredibly sore and therefore didn't want to be cramped into a tiny space and Barrett was just too big to fit in the first place. Red _would_ have come with them had his sense of smell not been so… acute.

The escape plan had two different exit points. One was to be smuggled out in crates from a local who frequently traded with Junon. The man, having gone out and in the city during Zack's extended nap, could safely say that the guards only checked the first few crates in his truck. He could hide people inside if they could hide in the crates.

Aerith and Tifa were the obvious choices initially, because not only were they the smallest but they were also the only ones with any sort of money on them. Cloud had been next because he was the smallest man, and then it came to the final decision.

Between Red and Zack.

_Still seems rigged_, Zack grumbled to himself, and tried to breathe through his sleeve. There was Cloud with two girls – and as irritating as Tifa was with her hovering, especially around Cloud, it seemed, he couldn't deny she was attractive.

Zack's only _real_ consolation was that each person would get his or her own crate - they had to pay 1000 each, the damn ass. Therefore there would be two planks of wood between Cloud and Aerith… and Tifa. And Red.

_Screw my sore muscles_, he thought_, I would rather be in the truck_.

The second part of the plan, concocted by Barrett, surprise, surprise - actually, Zack had been incredibly surprised he had come up with such a sound-proof plan - was to use the sewer systems.

Which, by the way, stank to the high heavens.

"It stinks," Zack whined. He couldn't help it. Really, who the _hell_ chose the _sewer_ to escape a city? _Especially_ one that apparently flooded twice a day with toilet water and all the other lovely bits that made their way through. Barrett – or rather Barrett's friend who helped him plan this – assured all of them that they only flooded at 8 AM and 9 PM, the average time when people went to the bathroom in the morning and when they went to the bathroom at night.

His eyes had long since blurred, and the flashlight Zack held in his hand wasn't helping.

"There was honestly _nothing _else?"

"Even if there was more space we couldn' afford it."

Zack frowned. That was true, as the four thousand it cost had completely depleted their gil amount to almost nil. Not to be a downer, but Zack had a hard time grasping the fact that they expected him to work.

He was… tired.

Incredibly tired. He felt like he was rotting away from the inside, and to compensate he forced all his energy into making sure no one knew what was wrong with him. Why? He … he didn't exactly know why. It was personal, at the very least. He was who he was, and regardless of what he was now he didn't want to change. He couldn't stand being in constant grief, so he supposed …

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Stop it.

He plunged on, his feet soaking up to his ankles, and the air clung to him with grime that made his skin feel like it was about to arbitrarily shrivel up and die, flaking away until he was nothing but bone.

They turned a corner, and suddenly an endless dark tunnel ceased, and a small pinprick of light poured in. The exit.

Which meant that he would probably never return to Sector Seven. Stupid! He cursed himself, shaking his head to clear it.

"What's tha matter?"

"Headache," he lied. Barrett let it go. Aerith may have healed him, but who was to tell him if he could have headache's or not?

He didn't say goodbye.

The water sloshed as Zack's gait faltered to a stop. He hadn't said goodbye. He had been so busy not letting the grief overtake him that he didn't… they… he wouldn't see them—

"Wha' are you doing? Get yer ass movin'!"

Zack licked his suddenly dry lips, "Have you said goodbye to them yet?"

Barrett's large form tripped forward. "Wha?"

"To your friends."

"They're on their way—"

"The ones that aren't going anywhere." Zack didn't know how much more clear he could make it, but Barrett didn't ask any more questions on the clarification.

"They're dead."

A harsh laugh bubbled out of Zack. Great, he was becoming jaded. "Not for them."

"For who then?"

"Never mind." What was he even doing? Expecting Barrett to understand? No… he did understand. That was the part that hurt. Barrett would understand but he wouldn't...

"Did already," Barrett pushed into his back with his gun arm.

Of course he had. Zack shook himself. "Well that's good then," and to appease the giant who had taken to crouching and occupying the entire space of the pipe to avoid grazing any side of it, Zack walked forward. It wouldn't matter if he said goodbye here or there or anywhere.

He wasn't ready for it yet.

He would much prefer to just shove it all away.

Okay, it was official, he hated dark tiny spaces. He needed to get out. They were making him depressed and they were making it _very_ hard to feel better.

He would find Aerith soon enough. At least she didn't frown at him every time he tried to lighten the mood. It almost felt like it had become a conspiracy whenever she would quietly drag her knees up to her mouth to hide her smile.

"Get a move on, don' wanna be here when it floods."

"_If_ it floods, then you got some very faulty information."

* * *

><p>"I'm terribly sorry," Red's muffled voice broke Tifa's musings.<p>

"For what?"

"When… are we going to be let out?"

Tifa smiled briefly in understanding. It was true, and even she was horribly cramped. "Not long." _I hope_. She had her feet jammed in a corner near the top of the crate, and her back in another. She couldn't even stretch her arm across without her wrist hitting the other side. The air was stale and humid and it made her hair stick to her neck and dampen. When they got out, it was probably going to frizz.

"Um," she felt almost embarrassed to ask, "Cloud?"

"Yeah?"

"Where are we going? After this. In general."

"Kalm."

"After that."

Cloud didn't answer her immediately. "Probably Wutai, if we need to go somewhere else."

"I've never been to Wutai before." Was it selfish of her to hope that Aerith had fallen asleep? Red would probably only butt into their conversation if he wanted to ask a question. Tifa was fine with that. _But please, just let us talk a bit more_…

"You haven't?" He sounded a bit surprised.

"No" A smile pulled at her lips. "I always wanted to."

"I thought..."

"I taught myself." Those were the darkest days of her life, when she wandered the countryside mindlessly beating anything that came her way. She was just… so _angry_. She reformed her Master's teachings until they were adaptable regardless of her opponent, but other than that… "I taught myself after..." she trailed off.

She couldn't look for another teacher.

"We'll go to Ningbo then."

"Ningbo?"

"It's a traditional town… you'd like it."

Now that wasn't fair. She bit the knuckle of her thumb, unable to stop the smile from spreading across it. "What's there?"

"It's not a tourist attraction… like the other towns. It's in the mountain range that Da Chao Mountain is. It's hard to get there but the tradition is more or less the same before-"

"Shinra."

"Before the war."

There was a difference? Tifa decided not to press it, even though she wasn't entirely certain why he would talk of Wutai like it was an old friend. He hadn't been in SOLDIER when Wutai was at war. He hadn't …

"Do you remember," no, she shouldn't say it. Oh, come on, Tifa! "The, uh, the promise you made?"

"Of course."

Her cheeks felt hot. "That's … good."

"Is it?"

Tifa brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "It is."

"I'm … sorry."

"For what?" What could he possibly be sorry for? She tried to think about it, but… nothing came to mind. For leaving? He didn't have to be sorry for going after his dream… which he accomplished. He replaced the disgraced General.

"For not being there. When…"

Oh. He wasn't there. He wasn't there at all. Some part of her had hoped that he had, that he had been for some reason. That he was one of the foot soldiers in the helmets. Apparently not.

"Where," she took in a deep breath, "were you then?"

"I don't know."

"What?" Tifa's body lurched forward, towards his voice. "What do you mean?"

"I was told about… home. But… I don't," Cloud took in a deep breath, "I don't remember what I was doing when it happened."

Then… that guard… Was it really too much to hope for that it really _had_ been Cloud back then? He didn't seem to recognize her, but his voice had been so soft. She twisted her fingers together. "I thought…" she swallowed, "I thought you might have been there. As a guard."

"If I was," he sounded relieved, "then…" she heard a soft chuckle, "I'm sorry for not saying hello. Properly."

"You said hello." He talked to her quite a bit, when the General Sephiroth disappeared for those horrid days. "Or… he did—"

The entire car rocked, and in that moment she realized that they had really left Midgar.

"What did he do?"

"He kept me company," when she actually sought him out, "a little."

_He sounded so much like you_. But… if it was… then Cloud had left her that night. He'd left her and disappeared when she needed him the most.

* * *

><p>Listening to their conversation made Aerith feel wholly unwanted. Red didn't say anything either, and she didn't dare join Tifa and Cloud's conversation or start her own. Not for the first time, she wished that Zack was there.<p>

If only for someone to talk to.

Aerith had her suspicions before, about how Tifa felt about Cloud, but this conversation was something on an entirely different level. It didn't even sound like the Cloud she knew when Tifa talked to him. It sounded like he had become quieter, softer – more gentle.

He sounded his age.

Aerith wouldn't… she couldn't interfere.

No matter how much she liked Cloud's attentions.

The convoy rocked again, and Aerith drew her knees closer. She just wanted out already.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Hello everyone! I am VERY sorry for the incredibly long summer wait - but here it is! The first chapter of Part Two, or the second arc, if you will. I hope it didn't disappoint in any way! Please, read and review! The next chapter is halfway or so done, but because the start of my university term is coming up updates may be a lot slower - I'll try to make them a lot longer in order to make up for it! R&R please!_

_Note: I have started a major project called The Fated, which started as a spoof for how ridiculous vampire and werewolf stories were nowadays and morphed into a massive work that will have an even larger sequel. If anyone is interested I will post the first chapter on my website darksentences (.com). After that there may be a long wait because I plan to have the book entirely finished and edited before I release anything after that. _


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